Alive Without Breath
by penniless1
Summary: With Death's guidance, the Mad Hatter, Tarrant Hightopp, will wait forever for The Alice to return to Underland; though Time stand still and teapots turn to dust!  They might get some extra help though, from the world's foremost bio-exorcist - Betelgeuse!
1. Fairfarren, Forever

"_Death ends a life, not a relationship."_

Robert Benchley; American humorist, 1889 - 1945.

"_You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body."_

C. S. Lewis; British novelist, essayist, literary critic, 1898 - 1963.

* * *

Once, in a land right under our noses yet as far from normal as the Earth from the Sun, there was a wood. It was not a pretty wood - often gloomy and shadowy, with trees pressing and rubbing most sinisterly against each other. It was, in fact, a particularly ugly forest - thus, the name coined for that particular swath of trees was wholly appropriate; Tulgey Woods.

There were, however, pockets of beauty to behold, even in such dense, dark, deceitful, deciduous drudgery. One such pocket - a glade of superbly soft and neatly trimmed grass - lay just to the outside of the tangled heart of the woods. This glade, a haven for fireflies and rocking-horse flies and bread-and-butterflies of all sorts, was the eternal location of one of the magical land's most enduring traditions - the Tea Party.

A long table of fine proportions was rooted in the exact center of the dew-lapped lawn, once dressed with care in the whitest of table-clothes, now entombed with a dusty, yellowing shroud of linen. Elaborately designed and well-chipped china pieces - teacups and teapots and saucers and cake stands, none of which matched the other - littered the pitted table top like so many offertories in the tombs of Pharaohs. Heaped in each was nothing more than sand and soil - what once may have been a slice of Battenburg was now no more than compost.

Chairs of every dimension and style lined the table - goose-down stuffed and bare of back alike - yet none were occupied. At least, none were occupied by the living. In one seat laid the thin, shivery, bony remains of long, floppy ears stuck between gigantic buck-teeth. Another seat told a far more intriguing tale - a long, steely hat-pin driven deep in the sinus gap of a skull with an impossibly wide jaw and teeth like knife blades. Small, rodent-like finger-segments were thrust defiantly between those wicked teeth, stained a dark, ominous maroon.

"_Twinkle, twinkle, little bat..."_

However, despite all appearances to the contrary, this glade was not the mausoleum of the dead. No, those pitiful remains of the Tea Party's last guests were not the ones honored in the glade.

"_How I wonder what you're at..."_

For at the head of the table - in a large, velveteen arm-chair that blocked Time's relentless assault as surely as a medieval castle - sat the Tea Party's permanent host and the true occupant of this formerly saccharine sarcophagus.

"_Up above the world so high..."_

The person looked a bit diminutive on the throne-like seat, the face buried under wreaths of dirt-coated auburn-red hair that curled and waved in on itself. The woolen frock coat was a deep gray under countless layers of dust and mildew. Enormous, booted feet kicked the bottom of the chair in a slow, idle rhythm, like the heartbeat of one of the sea's biggest inhabitants. The withered calves above the shoes led to knees that were round and heavily dimpled, though grime made the impressions difficult to see. The knees led to bony thighs, half-hidden in the moth-eaten ruin of a woolen, plaid kilt.

"_Like a tea tray in the sky..."_

The once melodious, lisping voice of the host was now a raspy, grated shadow of itself as clawed hands - for the finger-nails had not been cut in ever so long - stroked a crumpled, moldy, burgundy top hat, its formerly gay and hearty rose sash now a tattered sheath of dirty, flesh-tinged satin.

"_Twinkle, twinkle, little bat..."_

The hat, before a natty creation of its owner's clan as well as a convenient, portable needle and hat pin-cushion, was solely decorated with a torn label. What once had read 10/6 now read 0/6.

"_How I wonder where you're at..."_

For indeed, in this magical, underworld forest hollow - this Underlandian glade - sat the once proud, once glad, once very, very, mad Hatter. Tarrant Hightopp - the host and permanent participant of Underland's perpetual tea party. A man forgotten by Time, his friends, his Queen, and most importantly, his heart.

Death, well-covered in his signature cloak and using his massive scythe as a capable walking stick, paused as he took in the tableau surrounding his last, most obstinate customer in all of Underland. The White Queen had warned him that the 'Hatta' - who's clan he had once led _en masse_ to the afterlife (_not personally, mind you, but as his personality had now joined with that of Mors, the difference was hardly distinguishable_) - was not quite right. In fact, she had even suggested that his visit would do the man some good. Personally, he had never found his presence to be of any help to those already wandering so deeply in their own minds.

"Ah kin hear ye quite clearlae, sir. Ye may as well approach tha' table 'n' leh mae ken ye."

The red-hooded head rose minutely, allowing Death to glimpse a pair of burnt-orange lights twinkling from the tangled briar-bush of hair, as well as the flash of a gap-toothed, broken grin. Apparently the Mad Hatter was not as far gone as many had thought. Death found that a bit reassuring - he didn't have an issue dealing with eccentrics, but outright insanity was a bit more...pathetic, really.

"Naughtae, hat-guddler! Alice will bae wantin' tha' scone wheninsoe'er she returns, Ah wager. Thackery, laddie, move down a wee bit fer our guest."

Tarrant Hightopp, a man who honored his promises though he be destroyed both mentally and physically, barely moved himself as his first guest in next-kin-to-never walked slowly and stately up the length of the table. Death peered inquisitively at the chair on the Hatter's right side, raising one pale, bony eye-socket ridge in the process.

Malevolence oozed from the hair-shaded figure, almost palpable in its thickness and vehemence. Death bowed slightly in apology and slowly marched behind his host's throne to the opposing chair. With a flourish of his abysmal cape, he was soon seated in a rotting, rough-hewn oak chair. Gently - least he inadvertent reap his host's soul before he was through talking - the entity propped his namesake weapon between his own chair and that containing the remains of the Dormouse and Cheshire. He had cleanly taken care of those two at least a decade ago, so death was no longer an evil to befall them.

"Ah, t'is ye, t'is it? Ah reckon'd tha' ye'd be afear'd o' mae from tha' las' time ye came a-blitherin' yer nonsense, Sir Death," Tarrant began as he carefully resumed caressing the teapot. It was, after all, the very vessel in which a very small and skittery Alice-girl once hid from the villainous Knave of Hearts.

Death sniffed superciliously as he crossed his skeletal legs.

"**I most certainly was _not_ 'afear'd' as you so quaintly put it. Merely surprised that a soul would be so infantile as to _possess_ their own lifeless corpse and chair just to avoid the afterlife."**

The Hatter's shoulders made a small, creaking shrug while his head rolled deprecatingly to one side.

"**I will concede, however, that it was far better than the temper tantrum tangent with the claymore. Have you still got that dreadful knife, by the by?"**

Tarrant chuckled - a horrifically grating, chalk-on-slate sound - as he wearily flung his foot forward and up into the underside of the table. The resounding clanking and clattering echoed through the glade as the rust-pitted broadsword of his clan fell to the ground. Death sighed, then smirked in a conspiratorial manner

"**Yes, I'd rather thought that you might not have let go of it. Typical Outlander, aren't you?"**

The auburn-headed ghoul merely shrugged and let the faint light of evening glint off of his mercury-stained teeth.

"E'en if'n 'twere a Jabberwocky, mae clan 'tweren't ne'er eager fer thine visits. Ye cannot blame them 'r me fer fightin' yer untimeliness tooth'n'nail _as always_."

"**Indeed. That appears to be the excuse of every one of you Hightopps,"** Death sighed again, weariness of untold ages seeping out into the nigh-night air. **"I say, do you actually happen to have a decent cup of tea lying about somewhere? You may be an unreasonable git, but you do happen to brew the very best Darjeeling I've ever enjoyed."**

There was a long, considerate pause as Tarrant blinked his weathered eyelids slowly. With halting motions, he gripped the once-pretty china teapot in one hand as he raised the other, skin almost tangibly shrieking in defiance of the act. He hesitantly rubbed his second finger and thumb together, as if testing the faint strength remaining in the thin, leathery flesh over his bones, then snapped them once, briskly.

A steaming pot and clean cup appeared in front of Death, along with a small pot of fresh cream and a bowl of good, clean Muscovado sugar.

"**At least you have gotten conjuring down pat,"** the Grim Reaper stated with faint approval as he greedily prepared himself a cup of the well-brewed tea. **"Have you mastered the other stuff? Telekinesis, teleportation and the like?"**

The last of the Hightopps - living or otherwise - gave a slow, deep nod as Death took a delighted sip of his beverage, precisely prepared with two spoonfuls of sugar and two dollops of cream. The Outlander's brittle lips creaked in a sardonic smirk. The Alice had always taken her tea with two spoonfuls of sugar and a splash of cream. Furthermore, the tea was always Earl Gray - oh, Alice had a rather cosmopolitan tongue when she wished, but in the end, a smoothly blended Earl Gray was her utmost favorite.

"**Oh yes, that _is_ very good. Now then, Hatter, I believe it is time for you to pack up this little party and come with me. We may have to hurry a bit once I've finished this cuppa."**

Tarrant Hightopp deigned to raise his long-bowed head completely, finally revealing his sunken, gray-hued face, with the large, black diamonds painted around his burning embers for eyes. His eyebrows were now quite past bushy and well into monstrous, looking like teacup Shih Tzus below his forehead.

"Has it happened then?" the Mad Hatter croaked, his face breaking into a small, hopeful smile. The hint of a lisp was in his voice. Death noticed and could not help but smile a bit in return - though the hellish face made the faint emotion wither into something a bit twisted and cruel. The dark-shrouded entity set his empty cup down and took hold of Tarrant's hand, helping him to rise after so many ages of solitude and stillness.

"**Yes, Outlander Tarrant Hightopp. I have it on fine authority that Alice Kingsleigh's soul has finally been reborn. Prepare yourself. We shall be going to the Waiting Room shortly - we must not dally, or else young Alice may be an old maid once again by the time The Powers That Be have finished with the paperwork. Remember, they are still rather put out with you for flattering and hatting your way out of the afterlife in the first place, young poltergeist."**

"But surely after all your hard work, Asc-"

A flickering, pinpoint glare of the palest, iciest blue and a slender forelock of red-gold hair freed themselves from the all-consuming darkness of the cape. Tarrant looked suitably chastened.

"- Death, I mean - Surely all of your hard work and sacrifice can allow you one little mishap? You are still new on the job, are you not?"

The current shape of Death - for a mere century or so - smirked bitterly before turning away from his latest charge. He did not need to be reminded of his own past - it was done, for good or for ill. All that was left to him was his ever-spanning career as the Usher of the Mortal Coil and the vagueness of a hardly-fulfilled emotion. An unfinished task that he barely grazed once a year, thus could only vaguely address through his vicarious efforts with the ghost at hand.

"**I have only been working for one hundred years, you know, Hatter Hightopp. Only as long as Alice..."**

Tarrant held his clawed, thimble-less hand up. There was no need for the men to go back through the unpleasant memories, but alas, it was too late. Before his fiery eyes, he saw once more the day of Alice's final fairfarren. He saw Time come and abandon him once more. He witnessed again the sky as it blackened and wept, as Time itself disappeared and all began to be curtained gray with grief.

"**...Bit too soon for me to revisit those memories, is it, old boy?"** Death continued rather conversationally, despite the white-knuckled grip on his scythe. An extended examination of the situation allowed Tarrant to realize that he had -somehow - gotten his hand wrapped around the hilt of his claymore and, in an upward motion that would have split a normal person or Underlandian in half, sliced the air in front of the Death Angel. Or, at any rate, he had obviously tried to - the Grim Reaper's wielder, however, was having none of that. The Mad Hatter, shame-faced and mildly disgusted with his unconscious aggression, lowered his arm sheepishly.

"**Quite alright," **Death assured him as he regained a good grip on the poltergeist's upper arm - a slightly perverse mirroring of a Victorian couple walking out together. Staring back into the heart of the woods, Death had to remind himself once again that he was dealing with a man - and spirit - that had long been battling insanity. With a momentary pause to improve his access to the annals of information made available to all manifestations of the Angel of Death - truly, he had yet to get used to psychic 'benefits' of his new position - the entity turned the Hatter in the direction of Witzend.

"**Come - let us walk this way while I gather the energies required. Also, I feel that you may want to say...goodbye to them."**

Patting the knobby knuckles gently, Tarrant Hightopp began to shuffle along with his companion. Mortality personified was far friendlier than most could - or would - ever understand.

The trees waxed and waned around the two phantasma; almost in the blink of an eye - or perhaps in the rolling over of a millennia - they neared the desolate ruins of the Hightopp clan's former village. The Hatter could almost feel the electrically charged spew of the long-slain Jabberwocky; he could taste the burned, scorching ooze of ozone and hear the screams of his long-lost clansmen. Most important of all, he could see the faint, wispy outlines of his Muw'r and Faw'r, of his Sis and his cousins a-plenty. The faces were tragically wounded, but still welcoming, arms wide-open in beckoning stances. Stepping away from Death's skeletal hand, the last of the Hightopps stepped into the long-benighted clearing, his own arms out-stretched like a bird eager to take flight. With one last glance at the Grim Reaper's bearer, he smiled serenely before turning his head away from the inevitable.

"Fairfarren...one and all. Though Ah believe that in my case, 'twill soon become a matter of sayin' hello."

The Mad Hatter felt naught as the massive scythe split him from stem to stern, then wrenched his soul-manifest from the ruins of his body with a flick of Death's bony wrists. Around his twice-dead corpse, Underland was slowly swallowed in a gray fog, tinged with the color of The Alice's eyes.


	2. Tarrant, Transcendant

"_A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist."_

Stewart Alsop; American newspaper columnist and political analyst, 1914 - 1974.

"_Strange - is it not? That of the myriads who Before us passed the door of Darkness through, Not one returns to tell us of the road Which to discover we must travel too."_

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace); Roman lyric poet, 65 BC - 8 BC.

* * *

He awoke in the dark - all encompassing dark. Not one iota of light threatened to pierce the utter blackness surrounding him - a thick, impenetrable blanket that smothered any attempt at sight.

He listened. His ears strained futilely, eager to catch even one half-note of a broken whistle or a bitten off word. Sound steadfastly refused to grace him.

He stretched out his hand to feel - seeking through touch to understand the boundaries surrounding him in this vast Void. Limbs unseen shattered painlessly into motes smaller than a grain of sand, then dispersed - absorbed by the dark.

He opened his mouth to call out for someone - he could not have told you _who_ he was to call for, but he knew that he was seeking a specific presence. Something warm, bold, vigorous and indomitable.

He could not even sigh.

If he were - that is to say, if he _were_, a being, an entity capable of thought or true memory - he would have been afraid. He may have panicked and screamed and attacked either the abysmal space around him or himself. If he _were_, this existence would have terrified far more than any conceivable sort of traumatic event. As it was, he _was not_. He was an unfettered soul, adrift in the Shapeless Caverns of Time and Space and Matter, only occasionally thinking about that unknown kindred spirit that he had no name for -

"_Alice."_

Suddenly, the dark void ceased to be all-consuming. Far, far away - at distances that no living being could even begin to dream of - there was a light.

The picometer spark of luminosity pulsed very faintly as it drifted over - eons rolled and tumbled in its wake. Slowly, slowly - like the nanoseconds ticking before an inevitable collision - the light drifted closer, or he drifted closer to the light, or the grandly, starkly empty expanse of Matter and Space and Time folded in on itself. He could not be certain which of any - if not _every_ - one of those possibilities was actually taking place. Yet, before he was even aware of it, the light was no longer _there_ but _here. _It loomed over him, a ball of fire so hot that its temperature would not even be felt as it flayed away flesh and bone and muscle and limb and soul alike, cleansing away the blemish that was his existence on the perfection of the dark-

"Alice?"

[~~~]

There is no longer any dark. As sound inexplicable returns, so too does the concept of the sky. It is a unique shade - not black nor white; neither utterly dark nor blinding lit. The ways to describe this new phenomenon slowly filter into his newly-awaken consciousness.

"Like Alice."

His voice is smooth and beautiful, calm even with the susurratingly slight whistle underlying every syllable. He knows this is how is voice _should_ be, because it is his first time hearing it. It is good.

"And what, pray tell, _is_ an Alice?"

He lowers his gaze slowly, instinctively turning it to the new sound. It is a voice, but not like his. It is sharp and cuts a thin line across his throat. It is soft and wraps around him like slippery tentacles.

Or cat tails made of smoke and steam.

"I know what tentacles are, but I do not know how to describe an Alice," he answers the...cat...truthfully. The cat is large, quite large - immense enough to tower over him in large stripes of another unusual shade.

"The word you are looking for there, dear boy, is _color_," the cat explains in its sharp-slick tones. Another door opens in his mind.

"I have a mind..." he states out loud in wonderment.

"Try this," the cat prompts sleekly, using one gigantic claw to push a minute, round fruit - and how strange it is to suddenly _know_ and _understand_ these things without effort! - towards his recently discovered feet. It is green and yellow and red, the colors blushing and blending smoothly from one extreme to another.

"Apple?" he asks aloud, even as he picks the fruit up with both hands - it is no longer minute, but as large as his head. He looks at the cat's paw then back at the fruit. Mayhap it still _is_ miniscule if you happen to be a giant feline.

"What do I do with it?" he asks again as he rubs the fruit with one finger. It is not soft nor hard, but pleasingly firm. The beautiful skin of the fruit warms under his touch and its colors deepen invitingly. It is mesmerizing to watch the fruit heave gently, like a breath of summer. A noise far above his head finally breaks his attention away from the cat's offering -

He is startled as a large white mouse suddenly lands before him.

"You eat it, silly!" the mouse exclaims while poking him with one of her - and how he knows that she _is_ a she is as yet to be revealed! - claws. "That's what happens to fruit - they get ripe and delicious and then we eat them!"

He nods as the sensibility of this statement, however, there is a problem

"How does one eat a fruit, exactly?" he asks for a third time. The fruit is humming and vibrating in his grasp. He raises it to his ear - he wants to hear and understand this wondrous gift.

"Spoon!" comes a small voice from the viridian side of the surface. Three tiny, tiny brown hare, with exceedingly long ears and brown fur races over the slope then slides down to his cupped hands. A silver instrument much like a long-handled, shallow bowl is tied to the hares' backs.

"Spoon!" the frantic jack-rabbits cry again, their screechy voices utterly disproportionate to the rest of their bodies. They hop madly from one leg to the other as the mouse uses her nimble paws to free the device.

"Spoon~!" they shriek insanely as they bloodlessly gnaw off one ear each and begin to chase each other, round and round and round until they are one wheel; he can no longer tell which hare is which, nor can he distinguish the lack of an ear from any of them. They spin around his wrist as he takes the spoon from the mouse and tries to decide where he will begin. He turns and turns and turns before finding the patch of skin in the middle of the fruit to be most desirably - right where the green and yellow and orange and red mingle together the most. The spoon does not hesitate as it bites through the skin; the flesh is almost translucently white, oozing a lightly sweet, pink-tinged juice. It has no smell.

Shake her white head sadly, the mouse wiggles her whiskers and strokes his cheek tenderly.

"Eat up, T-"

[~~~]

He was back in the dark.

Although he could not see anything, he knew that the fruit and the spoon were still in his hands. He delicately placed the spoonful of flesh onto his tongue - it was very slippery, but cool and juicy. He swallowed and scooped out more.

Eating the fruit was a chore - there was no taste, just fleeting sensations as the smooth treat slipped down his throat, aided by copious amounts of its own juices. He was somewhat frustrated by this, which led him to take a much larger spoonful than necessary - a bid to speed up the process.

He had taste now and it was bitter gall.

"A hatta? Are ye mad? Ye verae well will bae afta yer apprenticed!"

"Ah'm ta wed, iff'n ye ken, Braw'r. Ah ken tha' naeith'r ye take t' th'other but Ah love him."

"Jabberwocky! 'Tis th'accursed Jaberwocky!"

"Nae! Nae! Downal wi' tha' Bluhdy Big Heid 'n' her Knave!"

"You will tell us who she is, you madman!"

Try as he might, he could not stop the slimy portion from oozing down his esophagus, polluting his rudely awakened taste buds in the process. Hacking and coughing and forced by a compulsion he could not understand, he took another scoop of the fruit, albeit far smaller.

He wept and dreamt of Alices as he anticipated another burst of nausea-inducing foulness, but instead, this spoonful was sweet, sweet - dulcet like taffy or honey or sugar or cream. It was also too small. Eager again, he took another scoop - one that barely fit on the spoon without dropping over the sides. He greedily swallowed it, only to choke as the flavor and size and lack of chewing clog his throat.

"Oh, Alice, why is it that you are always too small or too tall?" he gasped once he had made his body absorb the morsel. The statement caused a scene to flash before his eyes - there was a room and a sewing table, fabrics and needles and pins and sewing machines and...

"Alice!"

The figment was gone. Carefully this time, with exacting motions, he scooped out a portion of the fruit that was the exact shape and dimensions of the spoon. He savored the aroma of Alice that came from it before he tentatively let it slither over his lips and onto his tongue.

"You could...stay."

"What an idea. What a mad, crazy, wonderful idea...But I can't."

[~~~]

The light comes back again - the one that swallowed him before. Its color is Alice blue.

"I have things I must do, and questions I must answer."

And then she is there in front of him. He is looking up at her, wreathed as she is in light even as he is swallowed in darkness.

"I make the path. Will you walk on it?" she asks him with a smile - not once has her mouth moved to speak, for words are ridiculously useless here where they are.

"I have been investigating things that begin with the letter M," he answers nervously. He is fettered, his wrists now wrapped in bloody chains of encircling trios of one-eared hares. "Like madness and matrimony and match and mirror and monogamy and..."

She places her hands on his tear-stained cheeks - he does not remember crying, nor does he remember her wonderful presence growing or his own, lesser existence shrinking. Yet, she towers over him, her hair a golden cascade of stars.

"Merry Widow! Am I mad?" he wonders aloud as he wishes for everything to stop so that he may bask in her glory forever more. She smiles and begins to speak, her answer so, so crucial...

[~~~]

"**I suppose all the best phantoms are."**

He looked about again, for the voice no longer belonged to Alice. He was currently hovering in the darkness, his frame locked with his arms outstretched at the shoulders and his legs spread. Naked as he may have been, he still could not muster any shame at his display, even as millions of lights - none larger than a pin-head - began to sprinkle across the vista. Stars, all of them, some in constellations and some in galaxies and some dying in explosive glory.

Death, in his more tolerable human form, detached himself from the middle of a nearby black hole. He had short, red-gold hair that shone like spun copper; his limbs were smooth and white, as if they were made from the cream that lay on top of fresh milk. His eyes were a sparkling, ethereal blue that could pierce through any mere illusion and pry open locked hearts. The scattering of faintly bronze freckles over his nose bridge made him somewhat endearing, even though he was still rather intimidating. He was also naked, but the black wings on his back were far more interesting than the blatant display of his chosen gender.

"**You chose neither Heaven nor Hell - rather, neither Heaven nor Hell wanted you more than you wanted...well, you should know,"** Death informed him in a cultured monotone. Apparently all of this was no less than what he had expected to have happen. **"What do you remember?"**

He shook his head, but this time there were long curls gently whipping his cheeks and forehead and neck. The return of sensation to his head - the rough and scratchy, matted and comfortingly heavy weight of his hair on his scalp - distracted him for a while before he finally thought to answer.

"Onlae mae fam'lae, mae clan - 'n' Alice," he replied, but now his voice is rough and broken; the words do not come out properly formed. He was saddened somehow by his response. He felt like there was so much more that he should be able to remember, like something white, something brown and something purple...

"**Do you know your own name?"** Death asked politely, but his countenance suggested that such a feat would be truly remarkable given what had occurred. He was correct of course - being Death and all.

"Nae, sir," he replied but he was distracted again - the fruit and the spoon were gone, but as he twisted his head left and right, he could catch glimpses of a sticky, red substance coating his hands. He wondered-

"**It's blood, if you were wondering,"** Death informed him most detachedly. His black wings fluttered once, a release of some unknown tension. He thought he heard millions of voices cry out, then suddenly disappear. He tore his eyes away from the wings and back towards Death - who was now behind him, out of visibility.

"**Choose a star - it will share its name with you until you can find your own,"** Death intoned in a quiet voice. The sound went into his ear, but it was disconcerting that there was no hot breath accompanying the words. He closed his eyes for a second - minute, hour, year, decade, millennium - then opened them. He blinked, then locked his gaze on a bright orange-red star.

"**I see. That is what we shall dub thee, then. You are now...Antares."**

Antares blinked again - the name wrapped around him, giving his body form and substance. He sighed as he began to faintly feel the rush of solar winds and cosmic dust. The sigh was followed by another flood of memories that weakened him entirely. Death wrapped him in strong, pale arms and warm, dark wings - Antares suddenly realized that he was no more than a child compared to the bleak angel's size and strength. He is reminded of his Faw'r and lo! Death's face is now very familiar.

"Faw'r, have ye got mae sword 'n' mae hat? 'M not much o' ah hatter wi'out mae own hat..." Antares asked in a weary voice - he suddenly felt very, very tired and he could sincerely sleep for Time immemorial-

"**No sleeping now, lad,"** Death stated brusquely, but with a trace of mirth. Antares was now standing on his own two large, booted feet, dressed in old, familiar clothes, his claymore held point down in one hand and his hat in the other. They were both standing in front of a door. Death was back in his traditionally grim garb, the Grim Reaper tucked close to his side.

"**This is the Waiting Room. You typically wait here to see someone who can advise you on what you need to do to become eligible to move on, or how you can encourage someone living to intercede for your soul - they also advise ghosts on how best to avoid exorcism. Do you remember what it is that you wanted to do?"**

Antares took a moment to run the tattered hat's brim through his fingers. The image of a beautiful blue light filled his mind. He turned his head up resolutely, placing the hat firmly over his curls before turning to address Death in his rough, pointed brogue.

"Ah want ta find mae Alice. Ah want ta convince her ta le' us bae t'gaether, always. Ah want ta love her wi' everything wha' Ah am 'n' wi' everything wha' Ah have, now 'n' fore'er more."

Death nodded. His skin-covered skull of a face did not display any emotion, but Antares could feel the approval.

"**Very well, Antares. Let us get you inside - there's someone I want you to meet. I have a feeling he could be useful to you."**


	3. While Waiting

"_Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering."_

Paulo Coelho; Brazilian lyricist and novelist, 1947.

"_People hate as they love, unreasonably."_

William Makepeace Thackeray; British novelist, 1811 - 1863

* * *

"Number #28,305,702,759, please proceed to desk number three. Thank you."

Betelgeuse glared balefully at the spirit that drifted through the closed door that separated the Waiting Room from the Processing Department. Miss Argentina snarled back at the moldy, pasty-faced, dirt-covered ghoul, her 'lovely' features being marred into a grotesque mask as she gave him the literal 'Evil Eye.' Growling under his breath, the Ghost with the Most used a blackened nail to loudly scratch another line in the mucus-green and maroon splashed wall that cheerfully flaked paint off behind his head.

The wall was, obviously, covered completely in these minute scratches.

The ghoulish poltergeist wriggled uncomfortably in the hard, plastic seat of his bent, metal-framed chair - the only furnishings in the room other than a long, low table covered in various religious texts, copies of Dante Aligheri's_ La Commedia _and well-read magazines that were at least thirty years out of print. The other three walls of the room were covered from floor to roof in ghouls, ghosts and goblins of every conceivable type. The bank of chairs spanning each side of the grotesquely stylish bio-exorcist were conspicuously empty.

"To think that undead, tightwad ashtray Juno redecorated while I was out. Lady coulda at _least _asked someone stylish ta do it. I mean, look what a little fresh color adds to tha joint..."

The maroon and green splashes on the wall took on a far more disgusting note. They were down-right self-explanatory once you realized that one of them was _dripping_.

"At least they expanded this place," Betelgeuse groused before hawking up a wad of phlegm and continuing his interior design project on the wall. "If I have ta sit next to ol' Voodoo-Dat-He-Do Doc again, it won't end pretty. And what's with this sad-sack lineup anyway? Ain't there no good, decent, moral-less dames dying nowadays? Where the hell did all these uptight, pants-wearing chicks come from?"

"It's called feminism, you dick!" screeched the bra-less woman that met her end being electrocuted _and _decapitated when the parade float that she'd hijacked in the name of 'women's rights' sped under a number of high-tension wires. He marveled a bit that she was still talking so boldly, even though her first two days next to him had sent her hair completely white with stress and her skin was permanently tinged a sickly green. Within a week, she'd fled to the other side of the room, next to the Head-Doc. Betelgeuse had been ogling her idly for about six months now, but the bitch hadn't shown another chink in her mental armor. Plus, he wasn't _that_ hard up for it - the dames in Juno's whorehouse had been pretty accommodating once they'd gotten used to Saturn.

"Lady, I'd be more than happy ta let you see a real dick so you don't get confused again. You seem a bit outta practice and I'm sure I could teach ya a few lessons, know what I mean?" the stripes-wearing poltergeist suggested lewdly while shaking his hips. Miss Bra-less turned a little greener and shrank back in her seat.

"Aw, you guys ain't no fun - all stiff and bent outta shape! No offense there, Mr. I-beam Accident."

One fellow in rough, blood-splattered, denim overalls and a white T-shirt stood a bit and tipped his mud-covered yellow hard-hat. No-one seemed to notice that his midsection protruded far, far over his groin; the capital 'I' stamped into his contorted and long-broken spine didn't even phase Miss Argentina, who continued to flirt shamelessly with the muscular construction worker.

"Now that babe back out there, Lyds, she-"

Betelgeuse's brow furrowed as a sudden realization smacked him in the face like a crowbar, or more like Mike Tyson in round one of a fight. He actually remembered that lolita's name! The broad that was only a few seconds from delivering his eternal freedom from the drudgery of the afterlife before her _bitchin'_ guardian ghost dropped a sandworm on his head!

To understand the magnitude of this discovery, one must understand that Betelgeuse's current existence spanned a goodly six centuries and was rapidly closing in on seven. During that time, the only name he had managed to remember for more than a year was Juno's - something to do with working for her Royal Stick-Up-The-Ass for over three _centuries_. He didn't _do _names - certainly not some five or more _years_ after a bio-exorcism was done. For that chickie's name to still be in his head - well, he'd known that she was different, but how different... From her black, melodramatic clothes to her desire to get _in_, she'd been one of the strangest beings he'd met in a long time. He didn't _get_ that chick and, as a result, he couldn't _get_ her off his mind! He didn't _like_ things he couldn't understand. He tended to believe that he could figure that sort of stuff out quicker by tearing them into little, itty-bitty, easily-digested pieces...

The sudden silence in the Waiting Room drew the malicious being out of his reverie. The other ghosts in the Lounge for the Dead were staring at the poltergeist expectantly - his voice had died off mid-sentence. Even the Bra-less Wonder was juggling her head in anticipation. Thus, when Betelgeuse returned to his senses, a scowl on his pasty-gray face, he was surprised with the presence of a captive audience. Normally, such a sight would make the worms that had eaten his heart dance with glee, however, this was not a good memory. This memory was steeped in betrayal and the wanton breaking of contracts - no matter how much of a con artist Betelgeuse might have been, he _never_ broke a contract. _Ever_. His ragged, grime-encrusted fingers creaked and tightened into fists while he turned his venomous snarl onto his onlookers.

"Whaddya lookin' at? Can't a guy have a few secrets? Turn those eyes away now 'fore I leave ya tryin' ta enjoy the afterlife _blind!_"

The collective head snap was clearly audible. Even Miss Argentina found something better to do, dragging out a nail file from her bosom and applying it industriously to her fingers after winking solicitously at Mr. I-beam Stamp-pad.

Antares turned a skeptical, amber eye to Death, who merely shrugged, a bunching motion much like the pitch and yaw of the ocean at night during a lunar eclipse of the new moon. The two spirits stood in the doorway of the Waiting Room surveying the dismal scene while they plotted their next step. The Hatter, being an avid fan of complete and total freedom, had had quite enough of waiting to last at least three lifetimes. He was not in the mood for another extended vacation outside of Time's reach - he really would have to kill the old doddler if he insisted on interfering again. At any rate, none of that addressed his current dilemma - how to slip out of the afterlife unnoticed. In the Outlander's dubiously sane opinion, the plan set out by Death now reeked of mome raths.

"Ye want _mae_ ta befrien' tha'...tha'..._tha' guddling morgi? _An' then they call _mae_ mad!"

"**Listen, Antares, it's very simple. You want to find a way out of the afterlife - Limbo, Purgatory, Neitherworld, Al-Aaraaf, what have you. That ambulatory nightmare in there is the slimiest, slickest, moldiest screever and moskener you will ever find outside of Hell itself. If _anyone_ can out-smart your case worker, it is him. Or do you really want to wait here while she meanders through _another _lifetime?"**

Antares wavered under Death's intensely clear, startlingly blue gaze. He did not _want_ to wait another century and some for The Alice to return. He did not _want_ to risk her soul becoming enamored with someone else other than himself. Yet, it was obvious that the poltergeist in that room was old - far older than himself - and mischievous at best. Barely leashed chaos incarnate was a more fitting description.

"**Honestly, do you not think that you are being a bit two-faced about this? Especially considering the crimes that have barred you from the holy beyond?"** Death goaded the Hatter mercilessly, all under a face - real or falsely applied - of one whose future consisted of nothing more than boredom. Antares's right side winced under the admonition, however his left drew into a long, thin smirk. Overall, the Outlander seemed oblivious to the conflicting emotions on his face.

"You know, he's right - you really are being two-faced about this whole sit-chu-ation. No, seriously, take a look."

Antares whipped his head around to find himself face to face with a large, cracked mirror. His torn and tattered top hat teetered precariously on the mass of fiery snarls and curls that covered his face so well that his glowing eyes were barely visible. The reflection waved to the Hatter with its left hand and split into a gap-toothed grin of delight, even while its right hand scratched viciously at the glass, lower jaw contorted into a snarl. Then, suddenly, the mirror reverted to the stripe-clad poltergeist in question, who appeared to be vigorously chewing through something that looked like it belonged in the White Queen's apothecary. The Outlander recoiled reflexively and, with reflexes too well-trained for their own good, swung his rust-eaten claymore at the overly long, snake-like neck that was suspending Betelgeuse's head above the doorway. At the same time, he removed his ragged, trademark headpiece and tossed it into a nearby chair, where it settled precisely in the seat.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, bucko! Ya better put the over-sized needle down, 'fore I hafta learn ya whose the Ghost with the Most in this joint!" Betelgeuse snapped as he dodged the hefty sword easily. "'Sides, what're tryin' ta do, slice me, brain me, or kill me off with lock-jaw? Oh hey, what's up newbie? Gettin' into the meat of the job nowadays? Work hard now, 'cause you reap what you sow - sorta."

Death coolly gripped Antares' blade as it sliced through the air again, halting the motion abruptly. The Outlander was once again reminded that the embodiment of everything macabre was stronger than nigh anything else as the claymore remained immobile without any sign of strain or effort on the black-clad angel's part. In fact, he had not even bothered to use the Grim Reaper to block the blow, as he had before in Underland. Clearly while outside of the mortal coil, Death had the undisputed edge. The entity in question was not even taking note of the Hatter as he nodded reservedly at the elder ghost while allowing the broadsword to drop harmlessly from his grasp.

"**Betelgeuse, this is Antares. He was a hatter, tailor, schizophrenic and potential pedophile, now an active _lemur_ going on one hundred and twenty years or so - dabbling around at about level four, malevolent, mischief-making sort of powers. As an aside, he isn't from out there as you know it - he's far stranger than normal, so you'll just _love_ him. Antares, this is Betelgeuse. He's a six hundred year-old _guddling morgi_ as you so aptly named him, but only on bad days. On his best days, he's a level six specter of evil and all that is unholy, _at least. _He likes whores, umpire suits, liquor and underage girls in equal measure. I'm sure you two can find some poor waif to bond over._"_**

Antares's eyes darkened from light yellow to a blood-tainted orange at the casual accusation of having had an inappropriate relationship with a too-young Alice, even as Betelgeuse's distinctively purple aura began to crackle and snap like accumulated static electricity at the reminder of his failed marriage-cum-escape attempt with the Deetz' daughter. Both wraiths turned to snarl at Death, who waved off their displeasure with the practiced ease of a born and bred lord dismissing unruly servants. Taking the time to adjust his lightless, ebon cowl, Death turned his back on the two men and resumed his dialogue.

"**Tell me, Hatter, did you _really_ believe that I would not figure out that you've been intermittently haunting Alice's dreams since she was six years old in her _previous _life?"**

The last member of the Hightopp clan, as ragged and tattered and hellish as he may have been, still had the decency to look a bit bashful about his undivided devotion to a pre-pubescent girl. Death could tolerate this given that the Hatter had had the good sense not to disclose any hint of his possible intentions to the child that was Alice. The Hatter had, instead, patiently waited like a good gentleman until Alice had reached the ripe age of nineteen before attempting to subvert her. Betelgeuse was an entirely different matter - one that needed to be addressed immediately.

"**Furthermore, this is no longer the fourteenth century, Betelgeuse - _no-one_ in this era will let you get away with marrying a fourteen year-old. She would not even be considered a legally eligible participant, particularly since marriages nowadays are non-binding provided that they remain unconsummated for over five years. It would have taken at least another _two_ years for Lydia to be able to legally consent to sexual intercourse and at least another _decade_ to encourage her to dabble in necrophilia - if ever."**

The ancient phantasm couldn't really reply - he didn't have a single leg to stand on in the face of these accusations. Besides, it wasn't _his_ fault that it had been so long since he was last free - back when codpieces were still in vogue. Hissing like an angry, overfilled kettle, Betelgeuse retreated back to his seat and settled for glaring at Death and Antares balefully. At the same time. One eyeball per spirit. Antares remained standing, his legs spread wide as he balanced his claymore on its tip, ignoring any damage he inadvertently caused to the linoleum floor. Mortality incarnate merely rolled his glacial eyes before bringing himself back to more pressing matters.

"**Just a hint to you both - don't bother trying to be nice to each other. I'm not sure how many realities could take the strain of such an impossibility. Now, if you two will excuse me and even if you don't, your putrid presences are trifling terribly with my delicate digestion - plus, I have quite a lot of work to address. Good luck with Juno, Antares - you'll need it."**

With that, Death hooked the Grim Reaper over his left shoulder, took a step forward - then vanished through a doorway that led straight out into the sky, high over the cloud line of a small, tropical island. As the portal disappeared behind Death's back, the public address system in the Waiting Room crackled and buzzed to life - apparently ol' Juno hadn't had _quite_ enough in the budget to cover that archaic feature _and_ newly used furnishings.

"Attention, please," Miss Argentina's nasal voice driveled out loud to all and sundry. "Flight 455 will now be landing at gate 7. Please watch your step and ensure that you have collected all related body parts before deplaning..."

"Bae tha' White, Ah need maeself a good, strong cuppa afore Ah cahn deal with this place," Antares growled out as he dropped into a chair one away from the black and white-striped fellow poltergeist. His flaming eyes surveyed the room with disgust as the cornucopia of carnage and mortality ran the entire gambit of the definition of disgusting. One of the few reasons why he still believed that there was some form of a benevolent entity was the fact that he had been spared the sight of Alice's corpse waiting in this same, banal plane of existence - she had been far too good to end up in such a wretched state.

"Cup o' what're we talkin' about here? Cup o' rum? Cup o' gin? Cup o' vodka? Enlighten me, gumdrop," Betelgeuse idly enquired as he reined in his neck and returned to his previous task of putting the fear of _the man what he is_ into the other occupants of the Waiting Room. If the apparition next to him really was level four, he'd have to expend too much energy to get in a good scare. He just wasn't interesting enough to bother with yet. What the ghoul _could _do with was a few good shots of something heavily alcoholic and a few rounds with a succubus - the Waiting Room was far more mind-rotting than booze and blowens.

"Actually, what Ah was talkin' about was a good, strong cuppa tea," the orange-eyed ghost continued as he conjured up a small table, draped in a gaily embroidered white linen cloth and topped with a small tea tray for two. The resplendent silver tray was with tiny cupcakes and iced scones, finger sandwiches and pots of honey, jam and cream, as well as two mismatched, oversized china teacups - one of which was decorated with swirls of color ranging from blue to orange to red, while the other was boldly striped in deepest black and brightest white. A bright, clean teapot steamed gently in the middle of the spread.

Betelgeuse scoffed loudly, spitting out a wad of something reminiscent of the Black Plague, clearly unimpressed.

"Tea? _Tea?_ Listen fruit-loop, I dunno where you came from, but if _that's_ the best you can do for a strong drink, you need ta get ta _hell_ over there on the other sides with all those other pansy-asses-"

"Ah think Ah said I wanted a _strong_ cuppa, didn' Ah?" Antares retorted hotly as he drew out a small, brown, glass flask and gently worked the stopper clear. After sniffing the aroma seeping out of the bottle, a small smirk again graced the left side of the red-head's face, even as his right side sulked. Betelgeuse sniffed too, unconsciously copying the other specter's actions. He was rewarded with the strong, smooth scent of well-distilled malt liquor - beautifully aged whiskey, to be perfectly exact.

"Ah take it laek mae Fa'r used ta - three shots ta tha' wind. Wha's yer preference?" Antares asked with the absolute minimum amount of cordialness required as he splashed his rainbow teacup half-full of the liquor.

"Me, I kinda prefer ta take my whiskey with a splash of tea, if ya get what I'm tellin' ya?" Betelgeuse replied eagerly, his eyes locked onto the golden nectar as it trickled into the striped teacup, filling it almost to three-quarters of its volume. The bane of Juno's existence barely paused long enough for the Hatter to drizzle in the tea and stir everything together before slinging the entire contents of the cup down his throat in one highly audible gulp. Moaning and groaning in delight, steam billowing from his throat, the ghoulish cretin proceeded to hiccup, then belch loudly as the whiskey torched a path down his necrotized esophagus.

"Have I mentioned that you are currently my newest and bestest friend ever - ol' buddy, ol' pal?" Betelgeuse sighed loudly as he set his tea cup back on the tray and motioned for a refill.

"Ah have ah feelin' tis tha' whiskey tha's makin' ye partic'larly _bey-iendly_," Antares tittered muzzily, already well on the way to his second cup of Outlandish tea. "Ah've found tha' tends tae happen when tha' live-water's in yer skin. Also happens ta coover up tha' fact tha' we're _drewllyd, digrifwr dihiryns_, accordin' ta Death."

Betelgeuse grunted noncommittally, mellowed by the second cup of whiskey tea that he was now sipping. He stretched himself out on top of three of the empty chairs, pausing only to smirk at the other tenants of the Waiting Room who stared longingly at the miniature tea party being wasted on the filthy, revolting specters across the expanse.

"Well then, buddy, here's ta whiskey friendships!" the striped long-timer cackled before taking another swig and turning back to the other assorted deceased in the room. "Now see, if any o' you other maggots'd had decent juice in ya, ya wouldn't be piled up like sardines in a can across there."

Antares snorted derisively and raised his own teacup in a mocking gesture of a toast. He was comfortably perched in his chair, with one muddy, booted heel up on the edge, the other leg thrown out as far as possible and slouched halfway down the bucket seat. His hat lay idle only a few chairs away. With one warm scone in his hand, and the claymore over his lap, he was closely regarding the striped terror as it swiped a platter of sandwiches and threw a few in its mouth. The stripes, the grin, the joviality overlaying the lethal core...Betelgeuse was suddenly very reminiscent of one of his oldest frenemies.

"Ye werenae perchance ta be related t'one evaporatin' feline known as tha' Cheshire Cat, would ye?" Antares asked suspiciously as the memory began to live in his mind even while he wiggled a ragged-nailed finger, causing his hat to float gently out of its resting place and back up on its red-lined nest of hair.

"Sharp teeth, round belly, purple stripes, pretty fluffy, loose tongue, nothin' good ta say?" the striped poltergeist asked in a bored tone, his eyes fixed aimlessly on the sagging ceiling over their head. He was pretty sure that he'd just seen a sheet of asbestos under one of the ripped tiles.

"'Tis exactlae laek him!" Antares barked in annoyance before take a large swig of his spiked tea. Betelgeuse hummed tunelessly for a bit in deep concentration, then drained his cup and placed it back on the tray for a refill.

"Nope, never seen him. What's out there like for ya?"

Antares drained his own cup and put the bottle to his ear, shaking it cautiously before cracking it open and refill both cups. He had already given the vertically-striped cup back to his drinking companion before he remembered that he was supposed to add tea. He made a small note to himself to catch that mistake before it ran wild with itself.

"Out there fer me 'tis dead - lifeless, stale 'n' cover'd in gray fog. Wha're ye in here fer iff'n yer seven hunnerd years past away?"

Betelgeuse growled and bit off a piece of his cup in a sudden, ill-contained bout of anger - his juice flexed heavily in the air and sparked like lightning, almost tangibly pressing on the collective mass of spirits waiting on the other sides of the space. Antares was forced to reveal his own aura - an orange-red, blood-streaked, sizzling mass of ectoplasm that barely held off the unbearable weight of the other poltergeist.

"A stupid little bitch made a promise ta me - talkin' 'bout coming _in_ like she knew shit about what this life's like - then she tried ta welsh outta it! She and her _ungrateful, rat shit_ guardian ghosts! Fuckin' freshers don't know shit 'bout what they're doin' - callin' fer my help, for rescue from a fate worse than death... I _saved_ them! I held up _my _end of our bargain, but nooooooo! They can't follow through and gimme the babe! Nooo, what does that bitch do? Gets a sandworm on my ass and _gets me eaten!_"

Panting loudly from his outburst, Betelgeuse suddenly realized that at some point he'd jumped to his feet to rant and rave about that traitorous jailbait and her adoptive ghost-parents. The teacup he'd been drinking from had migrated into a wall - all seven thousand miniscule pieces of it. The ghoul's whole manifestation had changed - he was larger than his usual personification, with hands that sprouted black, blood-dipped claws and knife-like fangs instead of teeth in his mouth. His eyes were now a seething urine-yellow, with black-slitted pupils dancing maniacally. A large bulge in his back pulsated frantically, twisting and beating to an alien rhythm.

Souls that had lingered too long near Betelgeuse's aura began to wail and shrivel, blackening and crumbling like burning parchment. Others screeched and clawed at the walls themselves in an attempt to get away from the evil that paced the room. Antares closely watched the frothing maleficence as it struggled to bend itself back into a more human appearance, his whiskey flask in one hand and the claymore in the other.

"_**Betelgeuse, can it and get in here! Now!**_"

The Brooklyn-bred, scratchy female voice reached not only the waiting room, but quite possibly the far ends of the universe. Antares clutched his ears defensively as a much reduced and fettered Betelgeuse stuck his fingers deep in his own aural canals - after he plucked a squirming worm out from the left ear.

"Sheesh - that lady _still_ can't take a joke. _**I'm comin', I'm comin' ya smoky**_, slit-necked bitch," the poltergeist replied, his voice dying down to an ill-concealed mumble of curses as he pulled himself back under control. As he went to smooth back his hair, Betelgeuse realized that he had a new addition to his costume.

"What in the _hell_ is this?" Betelgeuse growled as he took the black, shiny top hat off of his head. It was be-decked with a large, white sash and a sharp, steel hatpin. And a pair of ruddy eyes.

"Take mae in wi' ye!" Antares asked in a not-so-pleading tone. "Ah ca'an wait out here another minute! Ah have things ta do, 'n' questions t' answer!"

"Hell no. N. O. No way, no how, not happenin' ya li'l shit-"

"_**BETELGEUSE!"**_

"Trust mae, Ah'm good wi' wimen," Antares assured the elder ghost, even as his claymore-cum-hatpin pricked the ghoul's left hand. Betelgeuse snapped once at the hat and made ready to toss it across the room. Unfortunately, Juno took that exact moment to send out her specially crafted 'Betelgeuse hook' and yank him back into the depths of her office.

"Rat shit!"


	4. Doomed Devotion

"_O Death, rock me asleep, bring me to quiet rest, let pass my weary guiltless ghost out of my careful breast."_

Anne Boleyn, Queen Consort of England, c. 1501 - 1536.

"_Grief is the price we pay for love."_

Elizabeth II, Queen of the Commonwealth realms, 1926.

* * *

Death stood still, hovering amongst the stars as if they were so many fireflies fluttering through flowered fields. His eyes slowly closed as he floated serenely on the winds of Andromeda, basking in the vacuum that was Space. Such relaxation was a rare treat for the Dark Angel - though it was a fraction of Time smaller than a nanosecond, it was much needed.

His being unwound itself as he reverted to his most familiar form - that of one Lord Hamish Ascot, Esq. Formerly a smallish man of large ego and delicate digestion, a man fond of proper behavior and high society. Hamish, dressed in his favorite suit, twirled the Grim Reaper in his hand - between one revolution and the next, it converted itself into a fine, black-topped walking stick.

"Right then, now that we are quite a bit smarter looking, it's time to go for a visit," Hamish murmured to himself as he tidied his ascot and daubed the perspiration off of his top lip with a fine handkerchief. Behind him, the Cursed Lovers, Altair and Vega, spun around each other in a fine dance as they drew nearer - they were intent on their annual reunion and could care a whit for either Death's or Hamish's presence.

"I feel like I'm forgetting something though - ah! Of course! I should never enter a lady's presence unannounced. Especially her Eminence Quite rude, quite improper."

Suddenly, at the apex of Altair and Vega's reunion, both stars began to glow hotly - fiercer white than ever before. From the heart of the stars, two small specks flew out, streaking like comets as they slowed and hovered over Hamish's shoulders. With a burst of illuminated stardust, two dun-colored mourning doves began to circle his head, cooing loudly. Hamish smiled as they landed on his shoulder, their low calls vibrating through their plump breasts.

"They are beautiful!" cried a bright voice. Over his shoulder a clear, white luminescence grew brighter. A light touch on his shoulder brought a wry smile to Hamish's thin, pale lips as he remembered the first time he had heard that wondrously, hopefully, brilliant voice.

[~~~]

Mirana, the White Queen of Underland, was ill - ill with a disease that had no cure. Of course, there was no true cure for the passage of time and she had been aging for quite a while now.

There was also no cure for a repeatedly broken heart like hers. First with the death of many of her subjects as her sister, Iracebeth, seized control. Then there was the uncontrollable madness that had claimed her closest friends and most loyal subjects, followed surprisingly swiftly by banishment of her beloved, if crazed, sister and the loss of her Champion. She had thought that mayhap she and Alice could have become quite close confidantes - it would have been so nice to have someone to honestly discuss feminine subjects with! But alas...

Once Alice had left and in spite of the Hatter's obvious heart-ache, her time had quickly been swallowed up in the intricacies of ruling the land. She lost track of her dear, mad friends from the Revolution for many a year until she first began to manifest signs of her disease. Somehow, the deep, hacking cough was a more effective schedule-clearer than a royal holiday decree. She swiftly found herself with oodles of free time while she worked to diagnose her own symptoms.

Sneaking out of the palace had never been easier now that she was her own patient - she needed sunshine, fresh air, good food after all. Delicately nested in her coach drawn by her favorite white horses - who just _could not_ stop asking her if they were jolting her too much - she had eagerly set off for the Everlasting Tea Party.

Even she, as Queen of a land that shirked the word 'impossible' as a futile limit on the boundaries of one's imagination, could never have dreamt of the scene she'd found. Amidst spilled food and ruined crockery was a liquid she'd been avoiding for years now - blood. It trickled from the Cheshire cat's ruined face and from Mallymkun's tiny hand between his tightly clenched teeth. It dribbled from Thackery's tongue-less mouth in small rivulets. It coated the once-plush lips of the Hatter like rouge on a young courtesan's face.

"Oh, my, I am terribly sorry about this! It's a dreadful scene - too much for someone of such nobility as yourself! Please, Queen, shield your pristine eyes! No, wait... Steel yourself, Hamish, she can't see you..."

Mirana turned suddenly and bit off a shriek before it could leave her lips. Behind her stood a rather dashing gentleman with red hair and alarmingly blue eyes. He looked just as shocked as she did at her sudden motions. The White Queen, ever a master at controlling her facial reactions, quickly smoothed the nervousness and fear from her frame. The gentleman did the same, with slightly more difficulty. His fine red eyebrows furrowed a bit in what appeared to be puzzlement.

"I beg your pardon, your Eminence. I truly did not mean to frighten you. I...well, usually I am in the rather unique position of being ignored by most people," the red-head apologized most beautifully, his manners as brilliant as his eyes. Mirana felt her pulse race uncertainly and her face flushed as he bowed gracefully.

"Allow me to introduce myself, your Majesty - Lord Hamish Ascot, Esq., also known as the Dark Angel of Death."

The White Queen could not stop her hand from fluttering to her throat as the elegant man straightened himself. Mechanically she held out her other hand towards him, allowing him the benefit of greeting her skin to skin - a royal treat not offered to many. The Dark Angel? Here? But if he were here, why in the name of the White could she possibly _see_ him-?

"Alas, your Majesty - and please believe me, it gives me no pleasure to say this," Hamish began again as he took her hand. Her frail flesh crept immediately with goose-bumps - his hands were abnormally cool and dry. Far too unusual for even a resident of Underland. His lips descended lightly on the back of her fingers and oh! The goose-bumps were soon gone, scorched by a sudden, passionate fury even as he continued to speak.

"Again, I am dreadfully sorry for this...but if you can see me as I am now, then I must advise you to get your affairs in order."

"My affairs?" Mirana answered, stupidly in her very honest opinion. As a healer, she could figure out what the angel meant. His crystalline eyes darkened sadly as he watched knowledge seep into her own dark lenses. He shifted his weight a bit nervously and ducked his head. His black wings unfolded themselves only to stretch upwards and outwards, momentarily blocking the sunshine and its life-giving warmth.

"Dear Queen," the angel began again, his head bowed in sorrow. "I regret to inform you that I will soon be making a personal call - and I shall be the final visitor of your entire lifetime."

[~~~]

"Good day, Life," Hamish greeted the angelic being hovering over him. The small, translucently pale girl carefully flapped her large, white wings as she brought herself over his head, her downy wreaths of sweet-smelling hair swirling behind her like nebulae.

"Good day, Death," Mirana replied, her voice strangely fitting even in her child-like body. Her simple, white shift floated around gangly, knobby-kneed legs and grass-stained ankles - she'd obviously taken another romp through Elysium. Her slender arms carefully coddled the two star doves in her tender embrace; neither Altair nor Vega looked like they had ever had such a comfortable nest in their extensive lifetimes.

"Both of them look magnificent, you know," Mirana continued as she settled herself opposite the darker angel. "They thank you most kindly for making this day even more special."

"Fiddlesticks," Hamish replied dismissively as he conjured up a neat, round table and suitable chairs for both of them. He busied himself with the tea preparations while Mirana released the birds and kicked her heels in delight. "I was simply fulfilling your request. You should know that I generally do not indulge in such frivolities-"

His breath - if he had still had a need to breathe - would have caught in his throat as he watched her upraised face follow the birds. Since that day, it had always been like this - he, struck dumb, enraptured by her iridescent beauty. Even when she changed her appearance to that of the sickly, adult Mirana, he was still her captive audience.

"Please, Hamish," she uttered softly, her face blossoming with pale pink roses in her cheek. "I am still quite unsure about my appearances. I do not see this beauty that you speak of so often."

Hamish - Death - smiled. This refreshing innocence was part of what had ensnared his heart, even though she continuously tempted him as a result. Well, she had when she was still alive.

[~~~]

Mirana had dismissed court early for the day to save her dignity and that of her courtiers. The insuppressible cough had loudly and suddenly reared its ugly head while she was settling a land matter, ripping through the delightful background music and shattering the White Lie she had painted regarding her well-being.

Across the court, before the coughing got so bad that she was forced to squeeze her eyes close and clutch her chest in agony, she saw the dark angel's avatar. Lord Hamish Ascot bowed low, his stunning eyes locked on her pain-racked frame. Those burning cold eyes were the last thing she saw before she swooned.

When she awoke, she was in her own chambers, strewn over her chaise lounge. Her body was swaddled in her white bed-sheets while the crisp evening breeze filtered threw her balcony doors. In the light of the full moon, a male figure was silhouetted on her wall. When she first looked upon the spotlight of moonshine, she swore that the shadow was stopped and bent, holding onto an impossibly immense reaping sickle. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. When she looked again, the erect figure of a man of middling height was resting on the wall.

Ignoring her deceitful eyes for a moment, the White Queen chose to remove the encasing sheets. She felt feverishly warm, her whole body hot and dry like the home of a Bandersnatch. Large hands gently set her own futile appendages aside and swiftly released her from her cocoon. Indeed, if this was how Absolom had felt in his own pupa, she was very glad to never have been born a Caterpillar!

"Forgive me for my impropriety, your Majesty," the smooth, cultured voice intoned from a nearby chair - the back had been turned away from her sleeping form, but was still close enough that a normal person should be able to notice her breathing. "But I was forced to remove your corset and bustle in order to make you more comfortable."

"That is quite alright, dear Lord Ascot," Mirana replied breathlessly - she could feel the cough building back up in her lungs and throat as the sheets were unwound. Wordlessly, the gentleman handed her a glass of water, his gaze averted from her unrestrained bosom. She found the voice to be slightly hypnotic and the hands were smooth and wonderfully chill on her flushed skin. She could not help but blush at the risque nature of the moment.

"I must admit, this is the first time that I have found agreement with my Champion on the demerits of good whalebone corsets," she continued as lightly as possible once a few sips of water had cleansed away the sputum in her system. "Alice was forever railing against them."

"And stockings," Lord Ascot added, his melodious voice faintly tinged with profound sadness and amusement. After a quick and cautious peek where he confirmed that the queen had rearranged herself more comfortably under the sheets, he quickly turned the chair back to face her bedside before continuing the conversation. "She loathed those garments more than any proper lady should. She would compare the wearing of them to the act of donning a codfish as a headpiece."

Mirana could not help herself despite the myriad number of questions that sprung unbidden to her lips. Was this man really Death incarnate? Did he know Alice well? How was her dear Champion? What had he been doing at the Hatter's Tea Party? Were all of her friends truly deceased? If so, how soon until she join them? All of those queries fell to the wayside as the image of Alice, clad in her fine, Jabberwocky-slaying armor and wielding the Vorpal Blade, was peculiarly beset with a talking cod for a helmet. Her faint, tinkling laughter chimed through the air merrily.

[~~~]

"If I had known that Death was such a charming fellow, I'm sure that I would not have worked so hard against you," the divine tea party guest murmured sweetly before sipping her warm tea. "I would never have imagined that he would be able to sweep me off of my feet so thoroughly."

Hamish could not help himself - his face flushed the bright pink that was the signature flaw of every embarrassed red-head alive. While he could quite naturally understand that Life was beautiful and to be cherish with marked respect if not slavish devotion, he had never understood the mortals that found him equally as entrancing. He was dark, pale, brooding, painful, thieving, something to be avoided for as long as physically possible. His face mirrored his eternal confusion.

"You _are_ beautiful. The problem is that your beauty is hidden from humans under layers of ugly descriptions and their own fear of the unknown," Mirana explained earnestly, her thin hands grasping one of his own as tightly as she could. She quickly kissed the back of the hand, then pressed his cool palm to her warm cheek.

"When you came for me, at the end..you were exquisite."

[~~~]

Hamish sat quietly in the ornate, claw-footed wingback chair, his frame not even dimpling the plush white cushions beneath him. His gaze was inexorably locked on the small, withered woman who hacked up her life's blood in large gobbets, her chest barely having time to recover before another spasm of coughing wreaked havoc with her body. She had long ago dismissed her attendants after having her ladies-in-waiting prepare her hair and face and dress her in her re-coronation gown - complete with corset and bustle.

"It will not be very long now," he quietly stated once there had been a lengthy enough pause in her wheezing. Mirana flopped back, exhausted, onto her chaise lounge. She had had it set up on her balcony where she could watch the moonrise one last time, despite the chill of the nigh-endless winter that had befallen Underland. With the great care that usually betrayed the dizzying aftereffects of such vigorous coughing, she turned her head towards the spot where he sat, half-sunken in shadow. A small droplet of blood hung tenaciously onto the corner of her lip - one lone escapee from the uncharacteristically black hand-kerchiefs that she had been using for a few years now.

Hamish could not help himself. Before she could blink, he was towering over her, his icy hands and eyes wiping away the bloody mar on her perfection. Stumbling over his own actions, his voice trembled as he drew his hand away. Unconsciously, he lifted the claret drop to his own lips, where he tasted her chastity and purity first-hand.

"Have you arranged for your successor?" he asked solicitously, eager to avoid the greatest temptation he had ever known in her large, doe-like gaze. "I could send them a message of sorts - prophetic dreams of ill-tidings are a specialty of mine, unfortunately."

She barely had the strength to speak any longer, so she did not waste it on idle words. She merely nodded her head as best as she could while pointing vaguely at her writing table. Hamish understood immediately upon viewing a stack of sealed letters on the desk. Sighing loudly - a great, heaving, despairing sort of sound like that of the Bandersnatch when the creature saw Alice's shape in the moon - Death shut away a sudden wash of tears. Eventually, he took on his most officious tone while he removed a black-coated pocket-watch from his waistcoat. He opened his eyes as his thumb quickly flipped the watch's cover.

Mirana did not need to see the crestfallen look on his face to know that the inevitable had come to pass.

"It is time. Have you any last requests?" Hamish asked crisply, his voice as sharp and biting as the wintry wind outside. Mirana, eyes still up-cast and large, silently motioned for him to come closer. Leaning his ear down till it almost touched her lips, he listened cautiously to her desires.

"First...dear Hamish...dance with me. And, then..."

The last of her words were too faint for any mere human to take in, but they made the dark angel blush. Standing and taking her with him, he nodded as a celestial orchestra began a simple waltz. He bowed and she curtseyed. They took each other's hand as she clumsily stepped onto his feet and fell against his chest.

As gently as possible, he glided around the room with her, his other arm securely fastened around her waist. Despite the smoothness of the dance, her hair streamed behind her, a traitorous reminder of how quickly they were actually moving. Each step was made so swiftly and with so much grace that Mirana felt as if she were flying, high in the sky in the midst of an enormous cloud. Hamish watched as her skin became nigh-transparent, her china-white features slowly fading to a deathly gray as her breath was ripped from her aching lungs.

"Ham...ish!" she cried as loudly as she could - it was still no better than a whisper. "Now, please!"

Whirling to a stop, he clutched her close to his own chest, his heart full of anger and self-loathing as lowered his head to hers. Ever so slowly, they shared both their first and last kisses of her lifetime. As his lips touched her own, he robbed her of her last breath, her warmth, her color, her spark, her inherent _muchness_.

He robbed himself of the woman that he most wished he could have met while he was alive.

[~~~]

Mirana carefully caressed his hand as his tears stood still in his eyes. She felt honored that he could share himself fully as they were - many often thought that Death was heartless and dispassionate, a description that was so far from the truth as to be a outright Lie.

"It is not your fault, Death!" she whispered into that cool palm, her own hurt present for any existence to hear and understand. "You are maligned by those who would trick humans and make them covetous, envious... Look now at how you guide the Hatter and my Champion towards a second chance! I know what you are, I know the truth of _you_ as do all the others-"

A single, frigid finger to her lips calmed the angelic personification of Life. Hamish swiftly gave her a peck on her cheek and stood up from the table. Bowing extravagantly, he held out his hand to her, as he had so many years ago.

"I would be most honored, your Majesty, if you would grant me the boon of dancing with you," he declared most formally - he was smiling once more, even though the tears still shimmered on his eyelashes. "After all, what point is there to a wedding anniversary if neither participant has fun?"

The silvery, bell-like laughter came unbidden to her lips. With far less grace and much more enthusiasm than ever before, she earnestly placed her hand in his and lightly jumped to her feet. Twirling, both black and white wings shimmered with laughter and tears as they mingled together, their eyes shining with the combined light of Altair and Vega.


	5. Champions' Champions

"_People don't want to see women doing things they don't think women should do."_

Joan Jett; American musician, 1958.

"_I wasn't like most girls."_

Laurell K. Hamilton; American novelist, 1963.

* * *

Alice Kingsleigh-Liddell rubbed her bleary eyes vigorously as the wretchedly bright morning sun and the blare of her alarm clock combined their efforts to rouse her from sleep. She could feel a great thumping along the side of her head, as if her older sister and lifelong personal nagger, Margaret, had chosen to pound a drum in her face for the entire night; her mouth felt like she had been chewing on cotton wool again.

"Alice, will you wake up? We're going to be late if you don't hurry!"

Lydia Deetz tried rather hard to look cool as the blazing summer sunshine threaten to melt her into a black-clad puddle on the pavement just outside the graduate dormitories. Raising the bullhorn to her mouth again, she switched the device on and let it blare at her long-time room-mate and best friend.

"Alice Kingsleigh-Liddell, will you kindly _**wake up? **_In case you have forgotten, we have to move out of here and into the new house _today!_"

The two women were often described as diametrically opposite creatures of the same species and gender. While Alice was tall and slender with lightly tanned skin and blonde, layered curls, Lydia was short and curvy with a cascade of absolutely black hair and pale skin that practically ran from sunlight. While their appearances differed, their thoughts and ideals were very similar. These beliefs often put them at odds with their parents, their school and their peers, but neither seemed to mind as much once they had discovered that they were not alone for wanting to live their lives their own way. Their purely platonic solidarity metamorphosed into a sort of informal sisterhood - at one point, Alice's mother and sister had jokingly described them as 'twins from different mothers.' Both thought that that might not be entirely untrue.

However, where Alice was an optimistic, straight-forward yet slightly whimsical creature whose imagination could spin whole new worlds, Lydia was a pessimistic, Goth-loving, snarky anarchist who could dissect ideas with the precision of a good surgeon operating on a patient. Somehow, these qualities led to Alice surging head-first into a very practical bachelor's and master's in business, while Lydia took the less pragmatic route into English Literature. Nevertheless, both women excelled in their chosen fields before their morals clashed violently with their educational desires.

Alice thanked many deities that the graduate dorms were virtually deserted - she could only imagine how delighted the campus police would be to throw a noise disturbance order on both of the young women's records. Even though both women had come to the illustrious university - occasionally called one of the most prestigious private schools in the entire U.S.A. - for entirely different reasons, they had both suffered the same disastrous end result. Their attempts to discover themselves or escape from painful memories all came to a crashing halt within one semester.

As the notoriously hard-working teaching assistants of English 101 and Ethics 110 who had had the gall to respectively flunk the college's entire football team for cheating in class finals with the knowledge and assistance of their coaches and for publicly exposing an unusually corrupt sorority's campus prostitution ring, they had been the victims of all sorts of petty revenge since the year ended. Actually, if you included the number of times that the dorm building had been tagged with hateful graffiti ranging from "Kike Lesbo Book-humpers" to "Whingeing Wanking Tea-pissing Scone-sluts," the abuse had been going on from the moment the news had leaked onto the web.

Eventually the college deans had somehow come to the decision that the _women_ needed to leave the campus in order to "foster community goodwill" and "reduce the distracting, non-academic focus on the student body." A lot of ripe horse dung as far as Alice was concerned - given the number of fraternities and sororities that had screaming, howling keggers every night, the college had _never _had an academic focus. Why, even the speed with which the women had 'earned' their graduate degrees - an outright attempt at bribery in Lydia's jaundiced opinion - suggested that academics were a complete sideline to the school's true goals; getting as much alumni funding as possible to pay the coaches and win athletic seasons.

Now, with degrees that were dubious at best and no ability to earn a job in their current town, the women were forced to move out of their subsidized T.A.-dorm and into the best accommodations they could afford - an old farmhouse no less than fifty miles from a town in any direction. Thankfully, Lydia's father had given her a good second-hand vehicle before she went off to school. Her white, 1995 Nissan Sentra was not the most exciting car on campus, but it was roomy enough for the two women to pack their most treasured items in the back seat and comfortably ride in the front.

"Mornings like these are the reasons why I think Mum should never have remarried - to a Texan no less!" the fair-headed girl griped as she roughly brushed her blonde curls back into a ponytail and threw on an old sweatsuit. In the small galley-like kitchen, she filled an empty cider bottle with water and chugged it audibly. She had gotten quite tipsy on some of her last bottles of wine that just would not fit into a box - dehydration and summer moving across town just did not mix.

"Mornings like these are why I thank Delia for her moving company contacts," Lydia muttered in reply as she finally made it back up the stairs, her arms red and raw-looking from the heat of the sun. She had rolled up the long sleeves of her black T-shirt while she hauled boxes and bags down to the curb. Her shirt was hand-designed with a very realistic and ghoulish drawing of a dead man on the front and an immense red star on the back. Thankfully for her tender, sun-phobic flesh, her legs were well hidden beneath her long, lace-trimmed black skirt.

"I see we're back on the Tamerlane heights again," Alice noted with a raised eyebrow. While she and Lydia had been good friends since undergrad, the UK-born MBA graduate could not understand why the name of such a beautiful star would somehow make her dark-haired friend muse on death and on one particularly wretched-looking figure in particular. However, the black T-shirt with its hand-drawn zombie and the star he was named after was a necessary memento of the first man, alive or dead, who had ever shown even the slightest interest in Lydia. Despite Lydia's fondness for the shirt, the black-haired woman had adamantly banished her friend from even calling the star's name in full. They had gone with the codeword Tamerlane instead, from the Goth's favorite Edgar Allan Poe poem.

"I'll get rid of this as soon as you get rid of that ridiculously mismatched tea set and those toys," the English doctorate and progeny of a business tycoon responded coolly, also raising her eyebrows. She pointedly regarded Alice's still open box of personal treasures - a large, stuffed purple cat with a ludicrously large grin, a small toy mouse with a large needle as a sword, a small, brown jackrabbit that was losing its fur in patches and a handmade, white, linen doll with red yarn hair and orange-green glass for eyes. It had a large, burgundy top hat sewn onto its head as well as a stuffed broadsword in one hand Underneath all of these toys lay a well-chipped and scuffed china set, specifically for the purpose of hosting a tea party.

"I suppose next you'll be asking the Sun to revolve around the moon for a bit - y'know, just for a change of pace or something," Alice grumbled morosely as she searched in a drawer for headache relief to go with her water. Lydia sighed and quelled her acerbic tongue for the moment.

"I know, I know, I'm being unreasonably bitchy considering that you stayed up late and drunk and packed a shit-ton of our books and stuff. I'm sorry, it's just that this is such a...a..."

"Blatherin' inconvenience?" Alice suggested mildly as vehemently taped her treasure box shut. "A travesty of justice given that the cheaters - and thus, the ones who should be punished by the sport association and the school - are allowed to keep their scholarships and rooms while we are now moving into a haunted boarding house half way into the next village of idiots?"

"Well I was more think that it was a load of douche-baggery, but I'll take that one you just reeled off," Lydia agreed with an angry toss of her hair out of her eyes. Both girls happened to look at each other as they secured their most prized possessions - in Lydia's case, an old telescope and a vast photographic collection of constellations, reported hauntings and paranormal episodes, starting with Chez Delia aka the Maitlands' home in Winter River, Connecticut.

"I swear to you, Alice, this place isn't really haunted and it's pretty secure for a Victorian home," Lydia assured her friend, gently clasping one of Alice's hands as they shook on the box. "I know that you're...sensitive...to some things, just like I am. I made sure the place was clear and the alarm system was already set up when I viewed it."

The fairer female blushed as she swallowed down the burst of fright that had flooded her system. Ever since her childhood, Alice had been prone to...well, dreams, for want of a better word. Except they were more than dreams - more like memories of someone else's life. A life full of tea parties and poison; cravats and cyanide. Always, her dream would end with her entranced by a pair of orange-green eyes that swirled through every color of the rainbow. Her only solace from the dreams had been her doll, Mr. Hatter. Whenever she had the dream, all she had to do was take Mr. Hatter to bed with her. Even now, his plushie sword was better protection against nightmares than any anti-anxiety drug she had ever been prescribed. After meeting Lydia at an observatory open-night in a nearby town, she had finally given the doll a proper first name - Antares, after the binary star-system at the heart of the Scorpio constellation- a noteworthy orange-red supergiant and its little green brother.

"Thank you, Lyds. Just for that, I'll make sure Tamerlane gets his own spot in the wardrobe," Alice quipped as she squeezed Lydia's hand in response. Their camaraderie was broken up as a long horn blast rebounded through the student quad. The sound of a large diesel engine soon followed.

"That's for us, I guess," Lydia sighed as she went back to taping her box shut. Alice already had hers hefted on one shoulder. "C'mon, hun, let's get out of this dump."

"Gladly!"

[~~~]

"Betelgeuse, what in the name of The Powers That Be were you _thinking_?" Juno all but bellowed once the poltergeist had landed in the chair placed in front of her desk. Once the hook had rudely deposited him in this position, the chair sprouted thick leather restraints that clamped down on Betelgeuse's wrists and ankles. A metal rod grew from the back of the chair and a thick steel band wrapped around his grimy neck. The black top hat slipped from Betelgeuse's fingers, unnoticed as it rolled around the desk and bumped into the leg of the afterlife's leading case worker's chair.

"Do you know how long it took me to clean up after this debacle of yours? And how long it took The Powers That Be to chew me out for letting this happen? Who told you to try to _marry a medium,_ you **idiot?**"

"Hey, _I'm _not the one who put a fuckin' _curse_ on my ass that requires me ta marry someone willin'!" Betelgeuse snarled as his malignant aura activated the holy water sprinkler over his head. "If you jokers would just _give me back my powers_ I wouldn't be hasslin' young'uns!"

"My eye, you two-timing con artist!" Juno barked back, smoke coiling from the slit in her neck as she lit up a fresh cigarette. She banged one tiny fist hard on the 50's era office desk and a spark of aura flew out - it caused the lights to flicker haphazardly throughout the Waiting Room. Even Betelgeuse seemed to become more cautious in his dialogue for all of two seconds.

"You sensed her just as well as any of us higher ups could have and you made straight for her like a bat outta hell! You made a push on an impressionable young breather when you _know_ that we can't encourage'em! 'Let me out and I'll let you in' my big, fat- You wanted to get her juice ta up your own, right? What, were you planning on storming Hell with her ta get your old mojo back?"

"Listen, you ol' hag, I'll storm your _ass_ if you don't let me go!" the foul ghoul hissed as the holy water burned acid-like tracks down his face. "I didn't need ta push her anyway - the girl was two away from a long walk off a short pier _on purpose_. I think you're just pissed that I got ta one of your potential replacements before she could sink too deep- _**What the fuck?**_"

Juno sat back with her now crushed cigarette - a small burn was slowly healing on Betelgeuse's forehead. Her face seethed with rage and her mouth was horrifyingly wide - until you realized that it was not only her mouth gaping, but also her slitted throat. Both orifices were lined with jagged teeth that glistened wetly.

"Now you listen ta me, ya li'l exorcism-bound piece o' dog-"

"Now, now, madam, it simply would not do for someone of your caliber to bandy about words at this fellow's...obviously lacking...intellectual level."

Juno quickly swiveled her chair around to find out who this sudden and quite unwelcome interloper could be, but she saw nothing. She turned back to Betelgeuse, who merely shrugged as much as he could under the restraints. Snapping her two mouths closed, she went to raise herself out of the chair, only to find herself...stuck.

"Oh no, madam, please, don't get up on my account. Tell me, are you fond of tea?"

The eminent case-worker's eyes grew wide. Craning her head up, she finally caught a glimpse of green eyes and red curls in a sickly-pale face.

"You! You madman! What are you doing here? I haven't even called you in yet!"

Antares slipped to one side of the chair, his hands still firmly gripping Juno's shoulders. She began to struggle a bit harder and Betelgeuse narrowed his eyes in concentration. There was no way that a mere level four ghost could _ever_ overpower someone like Juno if she really decided that she want to get him off. Besides, this sure as hell was _not_ the same person that he'd just met in the Waiting Room. The eyes, the voice - even the _aura_ had shifted into something far nicer and purer than the Scottish-sounding freak show he'd sponged whiskey off of not five minutes earlier. A talented ghost could change many aspects of their appearances, but _not their own aura._

"Please do forgive me, madam, for my unspeakable rudeness; I am generally ill-disposed to being so rude, however I believe in this case I was accidentally rude, which is far more forgivable than being purposely rude but nevertheless, one must put a goodly and considerable effort into avoiding rudeness of any kind..."

"Will you be quiet and _sit down already_?" the irate case-worker ground out from her clenched teeth. "I got a crick in my neck that'd make a giraffe cry trying ta look up at ya all the time!"

"Kepi! Oh, right, terribly sorry to distress your neck so, do apologize to the poor dear on my behalf," the chatty ghost babbled out before disappearing and reappearing in the chair next to Betelgeuse. After carefully flipping out his frock coat and dusting his moldy pants, he perched himself rather uncomfortably on the edge of his seat and took his hat in his hands.

"As I was suggesting earlier - tea, anyone?" the young phantom began again as he awkwardly conjured up a far smaller tea-table - he gave Betelgeuse a quick, apologetic look that the poltergeist found way too reminiscent of a snide smirk. "I have chamomile, Darjeeling, Earl Gray - oh, I also have scones, Battenburg sponge, angels' food cake - though that may be a bit inappropriate now that I think about it - devils' food - oh now really, I must _think_ a bit more when I'm coming up with these thin-"

Juno waved her hand over her desk; the overly-stocked tea table and the mass of files on her desk disappeared into thin air as she stood up and poked the Hatter repeatedly in the forehead.

"Don't think you can win me over with a soul-infused hat like you did with Cecilia, ya mercury-sniffin' snake-charmer- What are ya even callin' yourself nowadays?"

The red-headed phantasm smiled widely and tipped his hat jauntily.

"Allow me to introduce myself, madame. I like to be known as Antares - like the star; pleasure to meet you-"

Juno swatted the outstretched hand away and resumed poking Antares' forehead.

"Enough with the namby-pamby act, Hatter! I think everyone here knows that you murdered your last set of close friends _and_ committed suicide - by poison no less, so none of that 'my fingers slipped on my claymore' sorta nonsense," the case-worker ranted as she ground her indestructible nail into Antares' head. "I've been tryin' ta collect on your soul for _years_ now and you know it! Didya really think I wouldn't recognize you by sight? I know all of ya as soon as Death goes ta harvest. Didya honestly think ya could just _waltz_ in here with y'aura muted and sneak past me just 'cause we never met before?"

Antares regarded the older female phantom for a few seconds before his head rotated upwards then back down. When his eyes reopened, they were the color of burnt sienna. Overtly clever malice lined his face as he dropped the charade. His aura flared up quite a good deal higher than level four, but the burst was short and clearly un-sustainable in the long-run. Betelgeuse was forced to recall Death's words

'_Schizophrenic? No way - buddy boy knows exactly what he's up to in there!'_

"'S worth tha' chance, Ah s'ppose. Wi' all possible kindness, ma'am, I dinnae ken ta bae workin' behind tha' desk nawt time soon," Antares snarled as shackles similar to the ones restraining the Ghost with the Most began to lock him to the chair. "Mae doom was too an accident - Ah dinnae mean tae use s'mooch fer tha' las' hat. Also, 'tain't mae faul' tha' mae mercoorae drove the others mad 'n' dead - Ah tol' them tae stay away! Lastin', I din't ken tha' tha' buggerin', bangerin' bastard Time was allergic t'ah healthae dose o' Skepticism-!"

"Enough!" Juno cried loudly, gripping her hair with both hands before covering her ears. She ripped her hands out of her head and raised one up to the slit across her jugular.

"I've had it up ta here with both of ya! Either you two sign on as my assistants for the rest of your miserable existences _right now_ so I can keep an eye on you at all times, or I go to The Powers That Be and get an exorcism order to put you out of young girls' and everyone else's misery-!"

An ancient telephone popped into existence on Juno's desk, effectively breaking off her tirade. It rang with a shrillness and squawking urgency that could not be denied.

"What in the- Now who could be callin' me at _this_ time? On my private line at that!" the case-worker groused as she reached for the phone's archaic hand-piece. "Hello, Processin' Department for the Dead, Juno speak- Oh, why hello Mr. Death, how are y- Oh, Life! Sweetie, why are you guys callin' me while you're on your annual vaca-"

"**No time for that, Juno!"** Death bellowed, his copper-headed avatar long gone as he and Life hovered over a celestial view of the earth. In the midst of their dance, a shiver had crawled up their backs and fluttered their wings. It was a warning of the one thing that neither angels nor demons had any control over - a truly, utterly random act of Chance. While many accidents and notable events often _looked_ like a completely unpredictable outcome, these truly unforeseen incidents were very few and far-flung in the struggle between The Powers That Be. Swiftly, both Yin and Yang had moved to scour the Earth, looking for the happenstance - a murderous devil soon pointed it out to them over a small bridge in a state on the East Coast of the U.S.A.

"**I've got an unscheduled double involuntary man-slaughter in the making here - the marks are two human mediums, both female, both closely linked with powerful afterlife entities," **Death muttered as he tried to understand what was about to occur.** "This is one of those random coincidences so none of The Powers That Be can interfere directly, but They would **_**both**_** prefer to have these women alive for a while. Right now, Life and I have been told to find two neutral souls willing to act as guardians for these mediums, without delay!"**

"I'm on it, Boss," Juno crackled in a brusque tone, her manner all business. "Who are the ladies and do you have anyone in mind for guardianship? I got a few good low-levellers that could use the experience-"

"**This is too big for anyone below a three, Juno!"** Life snapped as she watched the accident unfold. An older gentleman in the oncoming lane swerved back and forth as a massive stroke racked his body. As the left side of his brain died, he lost control of his right leg; it pressed down on the accelerator and the car shot forward. Another stroke swiftly choked off his brain stem, killing him almost instantly. Death growled as he gently plucked the elderly soul, Life biting her lips frantically as the car continued unabated.

"**We need some professionals immediately! These women are about four seconds away from drowning!"**

"Gimme the names," Juno growled as she glared at the two spirits writhing angrily in the chairs in front of her, "I got two strong ones here, but I'm sure as hell not letting them loose unless it's worth it!"

"**Just send them to Alice Kingsleigh-Liddell and Lydia Deetz **_**now, **_**Juno!"**Death roared, causing a sonic event a good fifty million light years away. That cosmic howl closely shadowed Alice and Lydia's own screams as they finally caught sight of the careening vehicle of their untimely doom. The noise of the collision was pitifully insignificant as Lydia's white sedan hit the bridge barrier and teetered on its side for one infinitesimally hopeful moment - before tumbling into the lake below.

"**Their car has just gone into the water! _Where are those specters?_"**

"Did you two get tha-" Juno turned around to bark at her captives, only to find two smoking, blackened chairs and the reek of ectoplasmic ozone. The restraints in the chairs were nothing more than melted scrap silver and the holy water reserves in the roof had been evaporated so thoroughly that a large crack had formed in the ceiling. Antares and Betelgeuse were long gone.

"There has yet to be a day where I do _not_ hate this job," Juno grumbled resignedly as she took a small bottle of gin out of her drawer and took three quick capfuls of the liquor.

"**Never fear,"** Life finally replied in a soothing tone - Juno could almost feel a pair of slim hands feathering through her thin hair. **"This event may work out better for those four than anyone could ever have imagined. We might truly be able to leave them to Chance now."**

"**Knowing those two though, it's best not to forget to codify it with some iron-clad paperwork,"** Death added wryly, his right hand scribbling fiercely on a nearby Magellanic cloud. On Juno's desk, an official looking scroll noisily popped into existence, the words scrawling onto the blisteringly white paper in fresh, indelible, black ink. As Juno read the contract, a wicked smirk crossed her lips. With a flourish, she added her own signature, effectively sealing the deal.

"They'll never know what hit'em," she chuckled smugly as the contract was stamped and ratified.

[~~~]

Alice knew, without a doubt, that she was going to die.

Only a few seconds ago, she and Lydia had been in the dark-haired doctorate's car singing along with Oasis - of all the bands they both listened to, this was the one of the few bands they shared in common. They had been screaming along at the top of their lungs, the sunshine warm and welcoming as it streamed through the passenger window. Without any warning, the large, brown Crown Victoria just seemed to materialize next to them, and the screaming took on a whole different note.

The car had slammed into Lydia's side and ground Alice up against the guardrail, shattering all the windows in the process. Their car was too old to have the fancy and useful side-impact airbags that most manufacturers had started adding as standard features. Thus, the force of the impact had rocked them both like a sledgehammer to the head. In fact, Alice's head had cracked against the pillar of her door so hard that she had been unconscious before the vehicle even hit the water.

The plummet to the lake's surface only served to further batter her body before the contact with the water almost snapped her head off. As the vehicle sank and the cool, slimy liquid seeped into her nose, she suddenly found herself hovering over the car.

'_That's...me. I'm...oh God! I'm going to die - no, I'm dead already! And what about Lyds, is she-? Oh no! Lyds!'_

Lydia looked like a crumpled, abused, stuffed doll as her tiny body slumped over the steering wheel. Blood was dribbling from her ears, mingling and flowing effortlessly with the water. Her left side looked like it had been forcefully merged with the metal of the car, which probably wasn't far from the truth. The windshield in front of her was cracked and bloody as well.

Alice instinctively turned her head away from the sight, only to find Lydia wafting beside her.

'_Alice? What's going on? Why are we...? Oh...oh God, no, no! We're going to die!'_

Alice held out her ethereal hand to her dear friend. Ever so faintly, she felt familiar, thin fingers slip into her hand. There was nothing that she could think of saying to make this better. There was nothing she could do to save them. There was no one they could call one who was close enough to rescue them-

'_Sae m'name, lass!'_

The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Alice turned her head in every direction looking for the speaker.

'_Who are you?'_ she cried frantically, tugging Lydia's hand as she twisted herself around in a vain attempt to pierce the lake's murky waters. _'If you can help us, please-!'_

'_Alice, who're you talking to?'_ Lydia asked in a panicky, high voice. _'There's no-one else here but u-'_

'_Aw, poor Lyds. Hey, babe, this is your big chance - I thought you always wanted in?'_

Lydia whipped her head around, her dark hair a billowing, tangled mass that blinded her, even in her non-corporeal state. She knew that croak anywhere - not even in her dying moment would she be able to forget the sound of-

A flash of movement from different directions caught both women's eyes. Lydia Deetz focused on her mortifying body as it suddenly slumped back in the seat. On her shirt, the moldy ghoul winked at her.

'_Betelgeuse? What are you doing here?'_

At the same moment, Alice was watching her waterlogged toys rose to the top of the lake. The last toy in the mournful procession was Mr. Hatter, whose was oddly dressed in a ratty-looking kilt with his plushie sword held in both fingerless hands.

'_Antares? What in heavens' name-?'_

'_Yes!' _two distinctly male voices cried out jubilantly. The small plushie stopped moving - neither sinking nor rising regardless of its weight. The figure on the shirt began to wiggle its eyebrows. _'Say our names again!'_

'_No!'_ Lydia yelled, suddenly taking the lead before Alice could call after her favorite doll. _'What do you want from us?'_

'_Betelgeuse, ye've done a right awful number on this lassie, hav'nae ye?' _Antares grumbled as he shifted the sword from hand to hand. _'Ken this well, lass - all we wan' right nae is t'save ye from Death afore y'Time!'_

'_Scottish commando over there is right, babes,'_ Betelgeuse continued, buffing his painted claws on the shirt. _'Listen, you let us out now, we get you out this mess pronto. One freebie deal this time, no catches.'_

Alice yanked urgently on Lydia's hands - both women had stopped breathing.

'_We've got no choice, Lyds! We have to try them!'_

Lydia had not stopped eying the hated poltergeist from her life in Winter River, but there really was no choice. For now, she would not worry about how to banish him if he got to be too troublesome.

'_Let's do this Alice - you guys have a __**lot**__ of explaining to do when this is over!'_ Lydia sighed angrily as she acquiesced to their demands. With a quick squeeze of each other's hand for comfort, the women finally acknowledged their link to the afterlife and called on it for help with all their hearts.

'_Betelgeuse!'_

'_Antares!'_

'_Betelgeuse!'_

'_Antares!'_

'_Betelg-!'_

'_Ant-!'_


	6. Alice & Lydia's Lives

_The popular idea that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years._

Dame Agatha Christie, DBE; British novelist, 1890 - 1976.

"_When other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers I kind of wanted to be a vampire."_

Angelina Jolie; American actress and humanitarian, 1975.

* * *

Once upon a time, in a busy hospital in the bustling city of London, England - fine, the United Kingdom - anyway, once upon a time, a baby girl was born. This incident is, of course, hardly remarkable on its own - the additional merit of this being a premature, Caesarean birth is hardly worth the time either. No, the only thing that is remarkable about this birth is that the child, once her fuzz-sprinkled eyes had opened to the glare of fluorescent lighting, was exceptionally _curious _and ridiculously _contrary_.

This chronic condition of curiousness started quite from the moment she was born - mayhaps even whilst she was in the womb. It would admirably explain why she was in the breech position at seven and a half months. The view must have been boring upside down and thus, contrary to all common sense, she may have decided to turn herself right-side up. Another curious condition of Alice's contrariness was its rabid application in the face of Death.

As befitted a prematurely born and breeched babe, Alice had seen the full face of Death. Unfortunately, it appears that she found him rather becoming - she found far too many reasons in her short lifespan to meet him head on. Fortunately, he seems to have been a bit of a boor, given that she spat her defiance in his face at every opportunity.

After the premature birth, there was the paper-in-both nostrils incident, followed by choking on mashed peas, snorting spray paint left behind by a sternly scolded workman, and almost breaking her neck in her first attempts to walk - next to the staircase. She almost hanged herself with her father's tie three times, tripped out of the top of the bunk bed on a weekly basis. Her Parents - Helen and Charles - were beginning to think that they'd somehow brought Death's cloak home as her blanket.

"How in heavens can all these daring-dos happen to one child?" Helen Kingsleigh agonised out loud one evening after Charles had rescued Alice from the very top of a cherry tree in the Ascot orchard - the Ascots had long been friends of the Kingsleigh family, such that the elderly widow and last child of Sir Hamish Ascot had put them in her will. This inheritance gave the Kingsleighs a reasonably sized cottage and a goodly sum that allowed Charles to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams - the ownership and management of a classy watch store and repair service.

"Maybe she's cursed," Margaret mumbled hopefully as she played with her dolls and her tea set. You must understand that Margaret was the Kingleighs' first daughter - five years older than Alice - and the poor dear had found herself shoved in the background due to Alice's preoccupation with accidental suicide as a hobby.

Never underestimate the prescience of pre-pubescent children, for that was exactly the situation. Alice was under a devilishly strong geas that encouraged her curiosity to be fatal in nature. Unfortunately, she was not the one who was spellbound, to be even more precise.

The terrible fate came to its predetermined conclusion one fine day a few years after Alice started public schooling. Alice and Margaret were on their merry way to their father's shop after the elder Kingsleigh daughter had picked her sibling up from the nearby primary school. Both girls were talking merrily as Margaret showed off her latest acquisition - a lovely blue yoyo.

Behind them, on the road, a Datsun 120Y swerved around - never really straying from its lane, but now traveling next to the line, then next to the sidewalk. The driver could barely be seen over the dashboard, being as he was a bit too short to be driving without some assistance - say, from a stout cushion. This driver - a brick-layer from the nearby housing estate - was also impaired. That is to say, he was tighter than a fish out of water and drunker than a Lord out of Parliament.

Alice was beginning to lag behind Margaret as they passed the large open field that served as the village green, of sorts. She soon stopped and remained immobile, blinking her little eyes rapidly as she followed a small white object across the green.

"Margaret," she remembered asking, "Have you ever seen a rabbit with a waistcoat?"

Margaret was used to her sister's daft notions by now - a side effect of being a _child_ instead of a _young lady_, no doubt. She never even looked back as she scolded Alice on her preoccupation with delusional nonsense (she was quite fond of the word 'delusional' at that time) and admonished the smaller girl to hurry up and get inside the shop. Just a few yards ahead, Charles Kingsleigh stood with the door open, a stuffed doll in his left hand and a pocket watch in the other. He was smiling brightly as he greeted her precious girls warmly.

Before Margaret could respond to him or scold Alice further, the ear-grating screech of brakes on tarmac rang out. Everything began to move in slow motion. Margaret watched as her father's face literally melted into a scream, not realizing that her own face mimicked his as she followed his horrified gaze. The doll and the watch went flying into the air as Charles threw them away. Alice, intent on crossing the street and going through the gates to the Crown lands, stopped in the roadway, staring in puzzlement at her father's panic and Margaret's terrified shrieking before she began to understand the horror of the scene. The engine was breathing hard on her tiny back as she turned to look at the driver like a deer caught in headlights.

Her eyes squeezed shut at the same moment as the driver's own. She felt the impact and then she was sailing - straight towards the very green-space that she had been trying to access so very desperately. Her sister's screams filled the air.

You see, the sad truth of the matter was this: Charles was _always_ present whenever Alice had an accident. He was always the one to save her from falling or flying, choking or drowning. He had always been the one to enter the room just as Alice decided to run with scissors or red-hot fireplace pokers.

He had always been the one that she was meant to kill.

"_Darling Alice - are you safe?"_

Alice watched as her father was struck by the car.

"_That's good. Take care of your mother and Margaret for me."_

Charles' body flew into the air and over the car's roof. Red and pink matter arced prettily into Margaret's face and still-bawling mouth.

"_It's not your fault dear - not anyone's fault. I always knew that I would never live long."_

The hair of the doll - the same one that she treasured and took tea parties with even in as a woman in her mid-twenties - was dyed red with her father's blood. The top hat, once black, was splattered burgundy; the white sash was dyed pink. No matter how hard Margaret or Helen or even Alice herself would try, the colors never changed again.

"_I just wanted to keep you both safe..._"

The dying whispers of her beloved father would haunt her. So too would images of the rabbit. It would run before her, tauntingly close, then down into a rabbit hole. Alice would follow, only to find herself at a tea party for the Damned.

Always at the head of the party was the dessicated, shriveled version of her doll, along with the tattered remains of a preserved wildcat, the maimed corpse of a mouse and the sawdust-drizzling remains of a WWII-era stuffed hare. Glassy eyes would burn now green, now orange - Alice would know whether to drink the tea or not by the shade of those eyes.

In a nearby chair sat Death himself. He looked jarringly familiar, yet she could never place him in her mind. He was surprisingly colorful with his bronzish hair and glittering blue eyes, but the black wings were very convincing. It was he who had recommended that she make the doll her own. He told her that it would give her strength to face the grief and guilt that she still bore in her heart.

He did not want her to become another guest at that macabre party.

The dreams abated. As she purchased the stuffed cat with the ridiculous grin and was gifted the overly large and bleached Mickey Mouse knock-off from her sister, she began to sleep regularly. Once her Great-Aunt Imogen died and bequeathed her the floppy hare, Alice had become a very stubborn and purposeful young girl.

She then decided to ignore dead Aunt Imogen's murmurings about following her heart. Instead, she chose to master logic as best as she could, if only to avoid another tragic accident. Alice forced herself to rein in her terrible curiosity and temper it with the cold steel of reason. She would let that part of herself go.

She still fought Death tooth and nail. Her healthiness could kill a horse - possibly because of the notable one hundred percent decrease in fatal adventures that she had after her father's sacrifice.

Sometime during puberty - around the same time that her mother and Margaret started to go out to meet people again, instead of wallowing in grief and suicidal despair - the dreams returned but they were...far different. Not of unnatural memory or origin, to say the least. Alice thought at the time - rather rightly - that the dreams were a sign of her lonesome nature. The hatted doll began to sleep in her bed again; always, she took a good cup of tea with a dollop of cream and two spoons of sugar before slumber.

When her mother got engaged to a Texan oil executive based in Austin, the dreams went up several notches and began to include more people; a dying queen dressed in white, a dead queen shrouded in her own red hair, a blind, black-hearted knave that had been run through. The content of those dreams also changed - those eyes burned with purpose and made her body quake uncontrollably. Alice, relying on logic and reason rather than whimsy, did not follow her dreams further. Rather, she asked her mother to send her for a psychiatric evaluation. The sessions helped Alice to realize that she had become dependent on the doll; she was apprehensive about moving from the UK to the USA. She was already missing her sister, who was an adult with her own boyfriend and life - Margaret would not be with her this time.

The prescribed river of anti-anxiety and anti-depression drugs helped to send her - the part of her brain that conjured these images and had far different memories from her own - into a deep sleep. No longer did she hear whispers of the dead in her ears. She did not need the doll as much, she told the doctor - a white lie, for the blackness that she fell into upon slumbering was far more frightening than the dreams. Nevertheless, she took the drugs, because they allowed her to live in the present, not in her head.

The truth was that the doll and the tea set and his other companions were no longer an everyday necessity. She still insisted on packing them with her on the way to London. The hatted doll _was_ a memorial of her dear father, after all.

Now, the hatted doll and his flaming hair loomed large in her sight. It was all that Alice saw as her eyes lost the will to close; as her lungs stopped heaving, filled tight with water.

That stunningly red hair that used to comfort her to sleep was all she saw as she died.

[~~~]

Lydia Deetz had been born to love Death in some form or another. Call it a gift from her mother.

Her mother - her dear sweet mother - was only in her heart for nine months. After an otherwise unspectacular pregnancy, Evelyn Deetz laid on a gurney in a New York City hospital, ready to bring her child into the world. Her husband - Charles Deetz - was busy in the office making another million or so in speculative Manhattan real estate. She was confident though - she knew that the hard work was in order to make as much money as possible so their little angel could grow up well. She knew that this overwork was his way of showing his love for them both.

What she did not know was that she would not be around to tell him that she understood all of those silent implications.

As she went into labor, she began to think that something was wrong, but passed it off as her nerves. So her legs didn't quite feel like they were there and her breathing wasn't quite right - she was in _labor _after all. When Evelyn's little angel kicked her in the middle of a harsh cramp that left her breathless, she just cooed and sighed and rubbed her stomach, soothing her sweet one.

Two hours later, she wasn't even able to do that as the embolism ripped through her right lung, just as Lydia took her first breath.

Lydia didn't need to know what Death felt like - it had tugged on her umbilical cord from the moment she was born. She _felt _her mother die - a gurgling, choking, screaming-_blinding-searing-helpless __**pain**_ that exploded into being and out of existence with the speed of a butterfly's fluttering wings.

Lydia's first sensation was the brush of Death. And she loved it.

But Death did not love her. Like her father - a man who was broken under the heart-rending loss of the woman he loved - Death would not touch her. Charles himself chose to coddle her with the dirty, tacky blood money he had earned that fateful evening; she could have asked for the Empire State building and he would have finagled a deal to get it in her name.

But he would not touch her.

Oh yes, there were the inconsequential brushes of shoulders and hands; the passings of two humans in a cramped city like New York. But Lydia's only connection to touch as a form of love came from any number of people who could, would, and did pass through her life - nannies and governesses and tutors and school teachers. Other children, sensing her inherent 'untouchable' status, also began to shy away from her.

Her black hair was as fine and soft and strong as spider-web. Her skin was pale and glistened in the sunlight. She was wreathed in darkness and light like the moon covered by clouds. She was, in her own way, beautiful, like a cold winter night with the stars dripping overhead; warmed by fires and hot cocoa.

But they all left her alone, even the Death that she sought. Soon, she began to revel in that loneliness - it would tug on her heart and stab her chest and it was the closest she thought she could get to love. She began to prepare more for her death than for her life. She recited Poe's poems like a litany; she drank from the cup of bitterness. She spent more time talking to spiders than she did to humans once she was too old to need a caretaker.

Eventually, Charles remarried. They - whoever _they_ are - said that it wasn't natural for a man to want to be alone. He needed female companionship that he could have sex with - unrelated by blood. Now that he had the vibrant, lively _(if not life-giving)_ Delia in his household - a shot of sunshine to counteract Lydia's dark plague of solitude - he could go on living instead of remembering, they said. What they did not say, but rather silently cheered for, was the opportunity for Delia's liveliness to infect Lydia - to drag the girl kicking and screaming from the shadows and evaporate the mist of feyness that threatened to strangle her.

Then came Connecticut. And the ghosts that became her adoptive parents - Adam and Barbara Maitland. And _him_.

After coming so close to getting _in_ - to finally meeting her illusive target of Death Himself - she was forced to retreat. Her nightmares were filled with _him_ waiting over the threshold, looking for the chance to hop into the light that was Life - usually by taking her own. Her fear of his chaos and capability for lethal actions were enough to chill her .

She chose not to dwell on the _other_ dreams she had of _him - _the ones that recalled his inherently perverse nature. They shook her enough to scare her away from boys and testosterone and hormonal activities of any type.

The Maitlands valiantly engaged her in as many activities as possible to make her forget _him_. Charles suggested therapy, which was good for providing any number of mood-altering drugs. When Delia suggested that Lydia try to find "her natural artistic expression" and draw away her fear, the bleak, exhausted girl jumped on the possibility like a drowning man onto a lifeboat.

She had not expected that her canvas - an old, black T-shirt that was lying around in her drawer - would reflect her fears rather than bury them. In a half-mad flurry of activity, she had outlined him in stark fabric paint - gray-green mold and all. His eyes bore into her own, a lascivious smile tugging his sneering lips. When she held him up to her height, she had the distinct impression that he was the Big Bad Wolf.

She was, apparently, his Little Red Riding Hood.

Once she became aware of what she had done, Lydia threw the shirt back in the drawer and went back to photography for the rest of her high school years. In senior year, after a series of random spiders, moths, beetles and one patch of odd fungus triggered massive paralyzing flashbacks of fear, she decided that it would be best to avoid taking pictures of anything living at all. So, she turned her head to the skies above. It only took her a few days to obtain a truly telescopic lens for her camera. One bright, red-purple star in particular captivated her - it was the first star she felt compelled to photographed.

While trying to finish her applications for various colleges and universities and decide on a major, she discovered a modest but well-tended section on Astronomy in Winter River's small library. When her studies of the constellations showed her that the star in question was named Betelgeuse, she openly wept in the reference section. Why could she not escape him?

Moments afterwards, when the tired and emotionally exhausted teenager had reached home, she was assaulted by th past once more. Charles Deetz was rushed past her and into a waiting ambulance, Delia frantically on his heels. Lydia, stunned, did not even think to jump into the back of the ambulance as it pulled away, its doors still open as it sped with all urgency.

In only a few hours - with Adam and Barbara hanging over her - Delia let her know that her father was gone. His heart had always been dodgy and the old ticker had own kept worse time after her mother's death. Delia's presence had set the clock running the right way for a few years, but it wasn't enough to combat decades of stress and self-flagellation.

Of course, she actually knew all of this before her stepmother called. Charles came by to hug her for the first and last time before venturing off to the afterlife.

"_Lydia, I'm so sorry. You just reminded me so much of your mother. I...I couldn't handle that resemblance - it was like a knife in my gut for so long,"_ he had told her as his cold, dead fingers ran through her hair. _"I should have signed a contract with you. I've never broken one of those, you know. I should have made a parental love contract with you..."_

Death had once more brushed past her to take her parent.

After sobbing into Barbara's lap for hours, she went upstairs to bed. She had the niggling impression that if she just got some rest, the whole nightmare of the evening's events would disappear. Searching blindly for her pajamas, she gave up and went for the first large shirt she could find.

It was black - that was all she'd remembered before dropping into Morpheus' fog. When she woke the next day and saw the face leering at her from the bathroom mirror, her shriek nearly caused it to shatter. Thankfully, Delia had taken a great deal of Valium and sleeping pills upon returning from the hospital. The noise did not wake her. Once she was able to stop screaming, Lydia ripped the shirt off and threw it on the bed.

She didn't sleep in the room until after her father was buried. Even with Delia beside her, she still felt horribly alone throughout the entire service and committal.

Eventually, though, she did go back to the room - she had left her astrophotography equipment in there, after all. Once she had packed it all up, she steeled herself to look at the shirt. She had made it a point to face up to a number of uncomfortable truths after Charles' passing. Did she want to stay with Delia? Did she dare try to make it on her own? What about the trust fund - was there enough for her to go to college?

Did anyone out there want to touch her? After all, the ghoul immortalized on the shirt was the first man, dead or alive, who had wanted her for _anything. _He had made a _contract_ with her in order to secure that very thing - his freedom -_ and she had broken it._ It was only a matter of time before he returned and, as her father would say, "took what was his due." She was living on borrowed time.

That was why she had needed to remember him. This time, Death would be seeking her out, using _him_ - Betelgeuse. She could not let herself slip away from Life and feel secure that not even Death wanted her. It did.

He did.

The shirt had another, blank side. She still had some fabric paint. She could make a note to herself.

The star that had captivated her and shared its name with the foul ghoul who had willingly saved her adoptive ghost guardians was easy to sketch out and bring to life on the faded, gray-black cotton. She threw on the shirt, grabbed her possessions and left the room for good. She did not have time to waste now in indecision - she had to get to college and take a subject that actually mattered to her. Something like English Literature or Theater or Fine Arts.

And now, as her hair wreathed around her head and the shirt billowed in the water, the edge of the red 'hand of Orion' was the last thing she knew before her time was up.


	7. Epilogue: Life Ever After?

"_Love has no age, no limit; and no death."_

John Galsworthy; British author, 1867 - 1933.

_ "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."_

Friedrich Nietzsche; German philosopher, 1844 - 1900.

* * *

"Ye _bluhdy guddlin' shurkm_, tha's nawt'ah valid move!"

"Hey, Breezy, you play chess your way, I play it my way!"

"Ah'll shew ye ches' after Ah pull mae swerd from yers!"

"Watch it, Needles! I got juice and I know how ta use it!"

"For the forty-eleventh time, could you two _please_ be quieter?" Alice groaned as she tried to ease her sore, broken body into a better position. Despite all the fancy bells and whistles in the university hospital's bed, her arse was still numb. "We're in a hospital you know!"

"Right," Antares chirped as he sewed his lips shut - literally. Betelgeuse rolled his eyes theatrically and mumbled something about pussy-whipped red-heads who like wearing the skirts in relationships. The red-headed _lemur_ viciously elbowed the poltergeist in his prominent, striped gut. Purple and orange auras started to crackle in the air.

Lydia nonchalantly threw a hospital Bible at both of them with her one good hand - the faint thuds as it bounced off of one head and on to the other were vaguely satisfying.

"You know what, actually, I don't want you guys to shut up," the dark-haired woman whispered decisively after a few golden moments of silence. Her trachea had been badly bruised by her seat belt, but the pressure of it on her throat had somewhat lessened the amount of water she had swallowed. "Now that we've freed you, why aren't you two busy destroying a town or causing mass UFO abductions in Wyoming or something? I mean, you're both evil manifestations of ectoplasm and _we_ can barely talk, far less _stop_ you."

Antares and Betelgeuse glanced surreptitiously at each other before the former shrugged and went back to setting up the chess game. Betelgeuse groaned and turned himself back to Lydia. After a moment of admiring the swell of her bosom and the curve of her hip - hey, even the hospital's baggy gowns couldn't hide _everything_ - the poltergeist got down to business.

"Listen, babe, it's- Well, really, it's kinda complicated. See, we were in the Waiting Room - you read about that in the Handbook, right?"

"Handbook?" Alice asked, intrigued. Her overwhelming curiosity was still getting the best of her, even with Antares helping her to sit up and tucking her sheets back around her waist.

"Please, Alice, you need rest, relaxation, recuperation, restor-" the currently green-eyed ghost began to rattle off insistently as he shifted his seat closer to the bruised blonde.

"Antares..." she warned gently, patting one of his translucent arms carefully. Betelgeuse rolled his eyes and began mumbling under his breath. Lydia used one conveniently placed kick to shut him up.

"Riding hood! Well, yes, I'm sure you know what I mean. Anyhow, I'll be sure to lend you my copy as soon as I've finished with it."

"_Any_way, as I was sayin', we were in the Waiting Room when that emergency distress call made us jump into action. _Unfortunately_, it also meant that Juno became our - me and red-headed bubble Scot over there-"

"Ah'm more Welsh than Scot o'er here, ye _asynnaidd clebryn_..."

"_Like I was sayin'- _While we were out, Juno and Death came up with some sort of deal that's legally-binding, ironclad, shred-proof and stored in a black hole. As our executor _de facto_, Juno's got us by the balls - figuratively for ol' Welsher over here."

"Wha' tha' _morgi_ means is tha' Juno has made us yer private, personal puppets, forced t'answer only th'beck 'n' call o' th'one who summoned us when wae saved ye," Antares summarized briskly as his angry eyes swiftly changed color to burnt amber.

The women blinked in amazement. He shrugged nonchalantly and sat down on his chair. With a snap of his fingers, he conjured a needle and some thread, then set to work on a tear in his hat's stitching. His digits flashed like lightning as he continued speaking.

"'S true! Only ye, Alice, can send mae back ta th'afterlife, 'n' only Lydia can bandy tha' bluhdy Betelgeuse between th'worlds. Th'onlae way fer us t'bae freed is fer us t'learn our first names - th' very first name we were gi'en. Since tha' _herwr's_ been dead six hunnerd years 'n' Ah've been rottin' fer sum hunnerd odd, 's not vaery likelae t'happen. Not th'Ah bae wantin' ye t'bae gettin' any ideas.. 's just-"

"Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse!"

With an indignant squawk, the black and white-striped poltergeist was whisked away from the chair where he had reclined while trying to hack the hospital cable box to allow him to order porn. Lydia blinked, her ebon eyes large and innocent as she looked back at them.

"Uhm...mightn't you wish to bring him back now? Both Ant and Bee _have_ been the reason why we've actually had proper food from the diner down the street instead of hospital dinners," Alice asked her black-haired friend; Antares was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the tow-headed woman had already given him a pet name. Lydia merely yawned and rolled over as best as she could.

"I'll bring him back...just as soon as I get some sleep."

Alice pondered that thought carefully before turning a twinkling eye on Antares. He quickly caught on to her plans, but the words were out of her mouth far swifter than he could get to her.

"Antares, Antares, Antares!"

With a snarl and a poof, the red-headed poltergeist popped out of existence.

"Just for a little rest!" Alice sleepily promised as her Antares plushie and Lydia's shirt began to fidget and whine. "Then we'll talk about how to track your names down and free you. I...swear..."

[~~~]

Betelgeuse heard a peculiar hum in the air as he stamped his feet on his prehistoric welcoming mat in front of his home in the afterlife, the Roadhouse. Swearing under his breath, he shifted slightly so as to make room for Antares' arrival.

"Wha' tha' bluhdy hell, Alice?" the bivalent specter bellowed futilely before stomping his feet like a petulant child. Snarling, he took out his never-ending whiskey bottle and took numerous large swallows before flopping down next to the elder manifestation.

"Sew naw wha're wae s'pose t'do?" Antares growled out as he capped the whiskey flask and tossed it to Betelgeuse. The white-headed ghost mumbled and cursed to himself before tipping the liquor down his throat for a long guzzle. After a long, awkward silence, a wicked grin slowly spread across Betelgeuse's face.

"Y'know, Anty...the girls are gonna have a mighty big bill waitin' for them when they get outta hospital, right?"

The Phantom Hatter pondered the idea for a moment before shrugging in agreement. He decided not to waste his breath on pummeling the nickname out of existence right now, but by the White...

"I s'pose so - Ah dinnae know tha' goin' rate fer healin' services is here though."

Betelgeuse gave him a rough figure. Antares' eyes literally popped out of his head in shock while the striped specter levitated himself upright and dusted off his suit. His grin was still on his face and his eyes were a lurid yellow shade - very much like serpent eyes.

"How 'bout we work on giving the babes a little...present...while we're stuck here? I can give your fresher ass a lesson in cross-dimensional mind-fucking at the same time. We'll prob'ly be floatin' together a lot anyway and I don't need your Scotchness slowin' me down when we gotta work the haunt."

"Ye _crwthin' shurkm, _Ah'm _Welsh_!" Antares bellowed as he painstakingly swept his eyeballs clean before popping them back into his skull. Betelgeuse merely rolled his own before waving the younger phantom over.

"Whatever, c'mon! It's showtime!"

[~~~]

Alice Kingsleigh-Liddell and Lydia Deetz never did understand why the university happily covered their medical expenses - for life. The two women accepted the generous offer gracefully, but declined on the sudden offer to pay for their housing, food, and transportation needs as well. No matter what their suspicions, the sweaty, trembling university officials who presented the magnanimous gifts refused to explain why the entire institution had done an attitudinal about-turn on their situation.

The women had a good idea what had happened when the entire football team were shown in the local paper with chalk-white hair.

"Betelgeuse, you- Oooo, Betelgeuse, you... Betelgeuse! Get out here!" Lydia shrieked as she threw the paper down on the old kitchen counter of their rental Victorian house.

"Antares! Antares! Antares, where _are_ you?" Alice roared after she too had scanned the newspaper.

"_You called?"_


End file.
